FOR A FISTFUL OF EUROS
THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN TOWN WHERE IT’S GOOD AND BAD AND UGLY. AND UP FOR £2.8m!
Once upon a time in a corner of Spain, Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda shot holes through the desert heat. And a cinema cowboy classic was born.
But Once a Time in America wasn’t a tumble-weed moment for Hollywood more than 60 year ago… it put westerns back up on the big screens.
Spaghetti Westerns were literally born out of the heat of the desert, the rattle of snakes and moonlit nights where you keep one eye open when you slumber …
Spaghetti in Spain though?
The genre began in the mid-1960s because of the influence of Italian film-maker Sergio Leone‘s style and international box-office success.
The hey-day is gone now, although tourists do still ride out to the Tabernas and pay to be shot through the heart by a rustler before they imbibe in the first sangria of the day.
And now you can own your own Spaghetti Town with its spittoons, bullet holes and memories of Hollywood heroes like Clint, Lee and Eli.
Believe it or not the 85,700 square-meter (922,467 square feet) site near the Andalusian village of Tabernas can be yours for less than £2.5m ( 2.8 million euros $2.9 million) according to a listing on the website of realtor Grupo Rukasa.
The village of Tabernas is also home to the Almeria Western Film Festival, which is set to hold its 12th edition this year.
Rafa Molina, a stuntman, bought the set for US$6,000 to improve his job opportunities.
In the early 1980s, he started charging visitors to tour the set. Mock shoot-outs and bar-room brawls were later added, and one of the buildings was converted into a full saloon. It is still a working film set and is visited and preferred more by film enthusiasts.
Originally known as Yucca City, the set was designed by Carlo Simi and built for Sergio Leone’s For a Few Dollars More in 1965. It was also used as a set for other films, such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).
The park features daily cowboy stunt shows, such as a mock bank raid and a re-enactment of the final moments of Jesse James. It also has a swimming complex, abandoned gold mine, Cowboy style saloon, a Fun Barn for children, a zoo with birds and big cats in cages and many mock western stores.
Western Leone is the smallest of three such theme parks in the Tabernas Desert; the other two being Mini Hollywood and Texas Hollywood.
“What we’re selling is a small piece of Almería’s history,” said José Ruda of real estate agency Grupo Rukasa. “This is a place where memories and anecdotes were forged.”