Man Reveals Unexpected Challenges After Buying An Entire Ghost Town For Almost $2 Million

Purchasing real estate always comes with its fair share of difficulties, but few face the kind of challenges that awaited Brent Underwood, 39, when he purchased a ghost town near Lone Pine in California.

In July 2018, Underwood used “every penny from every account” of his life savings, along with investments from friends, to buy Cerro Gordo, a former mining colony in the Inyo Mountains, located on the western edge of Death Valley.

Once a home to over 4,000 miners and townspeople, it was completely abandoned when Underwood got stuck there for more than a month during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, Cerro Gordo grew on him, and he decided to revive the ghost town, if not restore it to its former glory, for people to know about the place’s rich history.

“There’s a romanticism to the West that’s pulled millions of people out here, and it had a hold on me early,” he said about his decision.

After Pablo Flores discovered a silver ore in Cerro Gordo in 1965, official mining operations for lead, zinc, copper, and other minerals ran in this area from 1866 to 1957.

After passing through several owners, the town went up for sale sometime in 2018 and caught the eye of a friend of Underwood’s, who sent him the listing as a joke.

But for Underwood, who was looking for a hospitality project to focus on at the time, it felt like fate.

Soon, he sealed the deal and was handed the keys to the 400-acre property for $1.4 million. He described the moment as “surreal” in a 2021 interview with Vice.

The town came with more than a dozen buildings, 30 miles of abandoned mineshafts, all sorts of trinkets left behind by its former residents, and the Belshaw House.

The Belshaw House once belonged to Cerro Gordo’s original owner, Mortimer Belshaw, and was now Underwood’s home.

Underwood began restoration work in Cerro Gordo on the side while still working at HK Austin, an Austin, Texas-based hostel he co-founded back in 2014.

Then came 2020, and along with it, the COVID-19 pandemic. The town’s longtime caretaker, Robert, left to be home with his wife, and Underwood stepped in, which proved to be the turning point.

“I showed up in March, during a snowstorm — which, coming from Texas and growing up in Florida, I was horribly underprepared for,” he told Vice. “So that ended in me getting stuck in the town for five or six weeks.”

“I literally could not leave, because the final seven miles of road to get to the town is a dirt road that is very steep, and if you get five or six feet of snow on the road, it’s staying there until it melts.”

Cerro Gordo had a lot of charm but no running water or cell service, with the nearest grocery store two hours away and the only road into town climbing nearly 5,000 feet in just under eight miles.

But the lack of creature comforts soon took a backseat as Underwood warmed to the lifestyle, he told The New York Post in August 2026.

“I found myself getting used to many of the uncomfortable parts of it… I don’t have to worry about some of the daily anxieties that people in the city do,” he said.

He eventually decided to make Cerro Gordo home for real, which came with some real-life consequences.

He and his girlfriend separated shortly after, and he hasn’t seen his family since the pandemic. Then there’s the general sense of isolation.

“I left a comfortable life with a decent apartment, great friend group, and supportive family to move to the middle of nowhere and try to figure it out,” Underwood told People magazine in September 2026.

“At first it was the romance that drew me out here, the West, the mines, the abandoned buildings, and the possibility of adventure. Six years later, the romance is still there, but what keeps me here has changed.”

Now he feels a sense of responsibility toward the town, those who helped build it in the past, and those who are helping him rebuild it now. He has no plans to leave.

In his journey, Underwood has uncovered many pieces of Cerro Gordo's history, now kept in the general store-turned-museum of sorts.

In a recent Instagram post, he showed off his latest findings from a mine shaft: an original miner’s jeans by Levi Strauss, a miner’s hat, several boxes of dynamite, a box of candles, a torn piece of newspaper from 1878, a carbide lamp, and a piece of fabric that he repurposed into a jacket.

In the comments of his posts, Brent Underwood is often asked if his ghost town does, in fact, have any “ghosts.” While he couldn't be sure, he recounted a similar experience in his 2021 Vice interview.

“I was not a big believer in ghosts prior to buying Cerro Gordo,” he said. “It was a part of the town’s history that I had heard about, but I just didn’t want to think about it.”

“Then one night I was here, and I was walking to this sunset spot I like to go to — and I know I saw somebody look out the window of the bunkhouse, and the light was on. They looked out the window, then closed the curtain.”

Underwood initially thought it was one of the construction staff, but Robert informed him the next day that the workers hadn’t been there for weeks.

“It’s f**king weird to me — I didn’t like it that it happened, and so my solution to that is just to not go into the bunkhouse,” he said.

“I don’t go into the bunkhouse at night. It’s just a rule. I figure there are 20 buildings, so no reason to put myself in situations like that. I generally avoid the bunkhouse during the day even.”

Another time, Underwood woke up in the middle of the night to a loud noise he assumed was a firearm. It turned out to be a devastating fire that devastated the town’s crown jewel, the American Hotel, built in 1871, and a few other buildings.

Underwood has worked day and night to rebuild the hotel, as well as other attractions, such as Lola’s Palace of Pleasure and the mine shafts.

Cerro Gordo is now open to visitors from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with free self-guided tours and $20 guided tours of the main mine buildings on the weekends.

The ghost town has been visited by actor Jeff Goldblum, former Disney star Cole Sprouse, and rapper G-Eazy.