VANCOUVER — The largest private island for sale in Canada can be yours for a cool $50 million, or probably something in that range.
There’s no formal asking price now but listing agent Mark Lester said Moresby Island — a 583-hectare Gulf Islands property southeast of Saltspring Island — should be worth that much in today’s market.
“It’s the largest private island in the southern Gulf Islands area,” he said. “I have to believe it’s worth something in the $50-million range.”
Lester said a Hong Kong-based family that bought the island (not to be confused with the Moresby Island in Haida Gwaii) in the 1990s put the property on the market last summer but it hasn’t yet attracted a slew of serious buyers.
“We’ve had interest but it’s fair to say when you have a (583-hectare) island, there’s a very narrow market of potential buyers,” he said. “We’re very careful to qualify people and it can take a while to arrange for a showing to someone who is really capable and qualified.”
Moresby Island, which was first settled in 1863, has a three-bedroom residence occupied by a caretaker who manages a 60-hectare farm with about 120 head of cattle, along with a few horses and sheep.
Lester said the island had a thriving agricultural operation about a century ago, with extensive apple orchards and vegetable gardens that supplied produce to Vancouver and Victoria grocery stores.
Part of the island was logged in the past but it remains predominantly treed. The island is about four kilometres long and two kilometres wide and has 12 kilometres of shoreline.
There are 17 land titles on the island — all waterfront parcels ranging from about 2.5 hectares to 60 hectares — but Lester said he would prefer to sell the entire island to one buyer or one group.
He said potential buyers might include a group interested in having a “utopian island experience” or an individual seeking a family estate or compound.
“It would likely appeal to an Asian investor but it could be anybody,” said Lester, a senior vice-president with Jones Lang LaSalle. “We’re not marketing it as a development property by any means. What a new owner chooses to do with it is up to that new owner.”
Limited improvements on the island include the residence, a sheltered dock, a barn, storage sheds, a fresh water supply and power supplied by a diesel generator.
