Damned Falls Short and Hell Is Still for Sale

HELL, MI – Hell still hasn’t had any takers.

John Colone put the southeast Michigan hamlet with the devilish name on the real estate market a year ago for just south of a million bucks, nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand — wait for it — six-hundred sixty-six dollars.

Now he’s willing to take $900,000 for Hell after a deal fell through to sell it to a group named — wait for it again — Damned, which wanted to establish a world-class artists’ community on the space.

The group mustered only about $11,225 of its $77,000 goal for a downpayment on a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

Hell isn’t the devil’s playground its fiery name suggests.

The property, surrounded by 66 miles of hiking trails, features businesses like Hell’s Chapel of Love, Screams Putt-Putt Golf Course, the Hell Hole Bar and others.

You could call the new $900,000 price one Hell of a deal.

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Colone said last year that as his 70th birthday approached, it was time to unload the 5.25-acre development in Livingston County. He’d like to see it go to someone who will continue the family friendly, year-round Halloween theme.

So he listed the property with a Rick Beaudin, a real estate agent for RE/MAX Platinum who calls himself “the Pinckney Pirate,” a name that probably works pretty well when you’re trying to sell a place called Hell.

• RELATED: At the End of Winter, Hell is For Sale

Hell, MI, is not the only Hell on Earth, in case you’ve ever wondered; there’s another Hell in the Grand Cayman Islands. And being in Michigan, Hell usually freezes over, but not so much during this milder-than-usual winter.

Local legend holds Hell got its name when one of the hamlet’s first residents, George Reeves, built a sawmill, then a grist mill and later a general store. When asked what he was calling the upstart boom town, Reeves reportedly said, “I don’t care; you can name it Hell if you want.”

Travelers from around the world have gone to Hell — this is so damned easy, wait for it one more time — and back from every U.S. state, as well as England, Australia, China, South Korea and Thailand.