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This snow-white castle in B.C. could be yours for $1.65 million

Next to the B.C.-Washington border, in the shadow of the Selkirk Mountains, sits a snow-white castle that looks like a Brothers Grimm backdrop. The keepers of the property aren’t a grizzled king or a giant dragon, but owners Harmen and Dawn van Hoogevest, a musician-slash–clinical counsellor and an artist who purchased the 22-acre plot in 1971 for $7,000. Now 82 and 74 respectively, the couple are looking to downsize: they’ve listed their enchanted castle for $1.65 million, ready to pass along their custom-built kingdom to another equally imaginative owner.

The van Hoogevests first lived in Vancouver in the 1960s, inhabiting a series of unconventional living quarters—from a leaky old fisheries-inspection boat to a school bus to a plywood box located in an orchard. Dawn, who was working as a waitress at the time, came up with the idea of pooling their pennies and buying a property where the couple could, as she put it, “really be free.” The duo dreamed of a home where they could grow their own food and nurture their creative spirits. They first laid eyes on their future castle grounds, located in Christina Lake, B.C., through an ad in the Vancouver Sun. They paid the site a visit in wintertime, tromping through five feet of snow, before putting in an offer. Immediately, Dawn and Harmen looked at one another and said, “We’re home.”

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