Interested in buying a piece of the town? Well, Georgia real estate saw a rare listing this week, with the historic town of Gay hitting the market. About 60 acres and 17 historic buildings spread across much of the centre of Gay, a small town, are up for sale, with an asking price of $13.5 million. The unusual listing in the Southeast includes commercial storefronts, hospitality venues, residential properties, agricultural and timber acreage, established event infrastructure, and the popular Gay Cotton Fair.
Georgia’s historic town of Gay hits the market
Gay sits about 50 minutes south of Atlanta. The town has largely retained its 19th-century charm, with original storefronts and historic structures still intact. The properties being sold are owned by Atlanta architect Keith Summerour and his family. His son Harrison is co-listing the offering with Bonneau Ansley, founder of Bonneau & Company, a real estate firm focused on development projects.While historic buildings often land on the market, Ansley says, this one is rare. “In more than three decades of selling real estate, I’ve never seen an opportunity quite like this. Historic buildings come to market. Farms come to market. Resorts come to market. But the chance to acquire significant ownership in an authentic American town with operating businesses, a built-in customer base and tremendous future potential is extraordinarily rare,” Bonneau Ansley said in a release.
What the buyer gets
The 60-acre assemblage sits in Meriwether County, Gay, with easy access to Atlanta, Peachtree City, Senoia, Newnan, LaGrange and Columbus, as well as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The 19th-century town has almost every detail intact. The well-preserved storefronts, historic buildings and an authentic rural identity are rare to find or even recreate in today’s times. The land being sold also includes a century-old cotton gin and a former peach processing facility that once served as a shipping hub for South Georgia farms.
Two businesses with recurring revenue
One of the most promising details of the sale is that it comes with two operating businesses with solid revenue streams. The Towerhouse Farm & Brewery, a craft brewery and taproom, generates approximately $510,000 annually. The package also covers the Gay Cotton Fair, a twice-yearly festival that draws roughly 60,000 visitors each time and produces about $750,000 annually. The festival is scheduled for Oct. 3–4, 2026. Combined, the two operations generate roughly $1.26 million per year, according to ownership figures provided in marketing materials.The town attracts over 100,000 visitors annually, while more than 1 million vehicles pass through Gay each year, according to the owners.Not just that, this town and surrounding areas have recently attracted attention from film and television productions seeking the cinematic appeal of west Georgia’s rolling countryside and preserved small-town settings. ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Lawless’, ‘Till’ and ‘Barbecue Showdown’ have all filmed in West Georgia.Along with the existing operations, there are also opportunities including expanded lodging, wedding venues, corporate retreats, culinary programming, destination-driven development, conservation strategies, agricultural uses and additional brewery operations.“Gay represents something increasingly difficult to find in America: authenticity,” Keith Summerour said. “The buildings, the streets, the agricultural landscape and the stories embedded in this place were not created for tourism; they evolved naturally over generations. The opportunity is not to reinvent Gay, but to thoughtfully steward its history while helping it reach its full potential as one of the South’s most distinctive rural destinations.”This 60-acre property sits within a growing regional collection of experiential tourism and hospitality destinations, including Big Red Oak Plantation sporting preserve and Quercus, Georgia’s Relais & Châteaux hotel and dining destination.“Most real estate offerings require years of investment before meaningful revenue materialises. Gay is different. The property includes established businesses, recurring events, hospitality assets, rental income and a destination that already attracts more than 100,000 visitors each year. For the right buyer, there is an opportunity to build on an existing economic engine rather than starting from scratch,” Harrison Summerour, whose family owns and operates the properties, added.