Southern Alberta courthouse made famous in Brokeback Mountain for sale

Someone getProperty Brothers on the phone!

A small piece of Hollywood and Alberta history is for sale.

It's cheap andcharming, but badly in need of apricey reno.

The courthouse in Fort Macleod, built at the turn of the 20th century, and featured in both the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain and Emmy Award-winning TV series Fargo, is available to the prospective buyer for the cut-rateprice of $230,000.

Not only will the successful buyer purchase a durable brickheritage building, with a little Hollywood stardust sprinkled around it, but the town's chief administrative officersays they'll throw in threejail cells that take up part of the basement.

"The [cell] doors aren't there anymore, but when you go in you're like whoa! These are small," Sue Keenan saidin an interview on theCalgary Eyeopener.

"Youwouldn't want tobe spending a night there."

Pre-dates Alberta

The courthouse actually pre-dates the creation of the province of Alberta, said Keenan.

"It's an old territorial courthouse, built in about 1902 by architect David Ewart from Ottawa who also designed the Canadian Mint. It remained a territorial courthouse for a number of years. The Town of Fort Macleod set up its office operationsthere in the '70s," she said.

Unfortunately, the buildingupkeep has grown progressively more costly, and it's too small for the town's staff, she said. The town partnered with the Livingston Range School Division and moved into a new home in August, leaving the iconic courthouse searching for a new role.

Adding to the challenge of reinventing the building for the 21st century is the fact that anyone who buys it will have to adhere to specifications surrounding maintaining and renovating heritage buildings.

"It's actually registered as a Canadian historic site andso between feds andprovincial governmentthere are definitely certain restrictions on that building in terms of renovations to try to maintain the existing structure the way it is," Keenan said.

"With that, though, comes a price tag that is three or four times more than what it would be to renovate an existing regular buildingbecauseyou have to do it to certain standards."

In fact, the renovations are so pricey that when the town made the province an offer they couldn't refuse, they refused.

"We tried to give the building back [to the province] but there were no takers," Keenan said.

"At the end of the day, when you have historic buildings that you have to maintain, there's a lot ofmoney andwork that goes into it. The Town of Fort Macleodis not in a position to continue to maintain these heritage buildings to the level that they're required so we're looking for outside investors to do that."

Law firm, pot shop among interested buyers

Despite the prospect of daunting renovation costs, Keenan says there have been a number of interested parties kicking the tires on the courthouse, including a law firm (which Keenan saysbacked off when it saw the renobudget) and a company interested in setting up a cannabis shop.

"It was very ironic. We had a lot oflaughs about that, for sure," she said.

There are now two interested parties, "very knowledgeable businessmen and engineers," she said.

"Either one of them would be a good sell for the Town of Fort Macleod," she said.

• MORE CALGARY NEWS| How the Calgary Stampede makes and spends $150M per year
• MORE CALGARY NEWS| Bass music shakes Calgary woman's house

• Read more articles byCBC Calgary, like us onFacebookfor updates and subscribe to ourCBC Calgary newsletterfor the day's news at a glance.