A SEVEN-ACRE Scottish estate with its own adventure playground, coffee shop and 42-seat cinema could be yours – for the price of a £55 raffle ticket.
The owner of Balmichael Centre near Shiskine on the Isle of Arran has decided to take the unusual step of raffling the £1.5m property instead of selling on the commercial market.
The stunning Scottish resort – which is completely paid off with no outstanding debts – comes with its own gym, grass sledging area, go karts, duck ponds and a synthetic ice skating rink.
A spacious two-bedroomed cottage is also included with its own decking area looking out to mile upon mile of picturesque landscape.
And the new homeowner will even be able to turn the prize into a business venture – by leasing out the multiple commercial units on site.
James Clark, who spent around 120 hours a week building most of the outdoor attractions, plans to donate all profits to humanitarian charities supporting communities affected by natural disasters.
The former army medic, originally from Lake County, California, said: “We got the idea after hearing about an Australian family who were giving away their property in Micronesia this way.
“It sounded too good to be true but then we looked into it and they really did it. Some young guy won the whole place. He would never have been able to afford a place like that.
“After talking to lawyers and government officials, we decided to go for it.
“It’s a real out of the box way to do things, and when it succeeds, we’ll be changing not just the winner’s life but those who are less fortunate.
“We could have just sold it the traditional route or even raffled it off as a for profit venture, but we want to do something more meaningful than that. It’s pretty exciting.”
The raffle for the private resort started last Saturday and has already attracted interest from thousands of potential winners.
Single raffle tickets can be bought on the island raffle website for £55 each. James needs to sell 27,300 tickets to break even.
Ticket holders have also been offered the opportunity to be entered into an additional prize draw where they can win win half of the ticket proceeds in specific categories – with the rest going to charity.
Jeff Albrecht, a world renowned artist also from California, has also donated paintings based on photographs showing the devastation left in Haiti and Japan.
His work is based on photographs taken my charity, Boots on the Ground, where James plans to donate all profits to.
The charity was most recently deployed to Haiti where they provided assistance to survivors of the earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people.
A further cash prize of £7,714 will also be up for grabs along with a number of social media raffles that can be entered for free.
The Grand Prize Raffle Drawing will be held on June 1, 2017, or earlier if all tickets are sold before that date.
