At the End of Winter, Hell Is for Sale

Hell, which often freezes over – along with the rest of Michigan – is for sale. (Photo via Facebook)

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If you’ve ever wished anyone to a special corner of Hell, you might be able to cash in on that without incurring the kind of wrath that causes you to sprout a tail and horns and develop cloven hooves.

Hell is for sale – at least, most of it is. It can be yours for just shy of a million bucks – $999,666. Get it? Six-six-six. That was for effect, according to current owner John Colone, who says that his 70th birthday approaches, it’s time to give up the 5.25-acre development in Livingston County.

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

“I’d like the person who owns Hell to be someone where everything comes from the heart,” Colone said in a video on YouTube and the Jackson Citizen Patriot/MLive.com. “I’d love to see it stay the family-friendly place it is where it’s Halloween all year-round. And I hope it’s someone who wants to keep some of my ideas going.”

Whoever buys Hell also gets rights to all Hell-related merchandise. A quick tour of all that Hell entails supports the notion that Colone never heard a cliche he couldn’t turn into a tourist attraction.

The chapel where couples go for a devilishly fun wedding day promises: “If you get married in Hell, there’s nowhere to go but up,” and offers a free do-over if the marriage made in Hell doesn’t take.

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Scream’s Ice Cream & Diner features a “creamatory” of selections, including the apparently quite yummy Gravedigger’s Sundae.

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 freezes over. A lot.

You get the idea. It is, to turn a phrase, one hell of a deal.

“Hell is a fun thing to do,” he said. “I love coming up with all the ideas of what you can do here – they’re endless. “It’s just time to find the right people to carry on.”

And there’s at least one interested buyer, and one who shares Colone’s predilection for word plays, if not the same desire to create fun memories in Hell.

Detroit-based DAMNED wants to buy Hell and “unleash Hell 2.0 on Earth.”

Toward that end, the artists’ enclave has launched a $1.3 million Kickstarter campaign to buy Hell for a performance arts center. The group has, ahem, a long damned way to go. By mid-day Wednesday about $47,250 had been raised in the campaign that expires on March 22.

The group apparently initially wanted to buy an abandoned church for its annual “enlightened darkness” art exhibit, but jettisoned that plan on Friday the 13th of February when – not making this up – “a divine opportunity appeared which made us think … why rebuild a haven when we can reign in Hell?”

Tell Us:

• What would you do with Hell if you had an extra $999,666 to invest?

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 – and, wait for it, back – from every U.S. state, as well as England, Australia, China, South Korea and Thailand.