Ohio couple: We bought a town

Maybe you’re in the market for a house, but what about a town?

Saji Daniel and Shannon McGauley, a couple from Ohio, weren’t looking for a municipality either, but when an eccentric benefactor encouraged them to buy Foxburg, Pennsylvania, they went for it, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The couple first purchased the town’s Clue-like mansion, RiverStone Estate, for $15 million from Art Steffee, a retired spinal surgeon. Over the months that followed, Daniel and McGauley bought up more of Dr. Steffee’s holdings in Foxburg, which had been on the market for about $3 million.

Those additional acquisitions, including local businesses and 50 residential lots, comprise much of Foxburg’s downtown area.

The story is reminiscent of the Canadian sitcom Schitt’s Creek, where a once-wealthy family moves to a rustic town the patriarch purchased as a joke, then becomes part of the community.

Dr. Steffee, after selling his surgical tool company for $325 million in 2008, bought the 1,200-acre RiverStone property for $5 million. But the doctor and his wife, Patricia, were not satisfied with their luxurious estate within the dilapidated Foxburg, calling the downtown a “mud hole,” Steffee told the outlet.

Foxburg is situated in economically depressed Clarion County along the Allegheny River, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh. The 2020 census reported that over 20 percent of Foxburg’s population lives below the poverty line, and the median household income is $31,719.

Compared to Steffee’s multi million dollar mansion, the median home price in Clarion County is $123,343.

In the years following his purchase of RiverStone, Steffee spent an estimated $6 million to build a pizza shop, hotel, winery and other businesses in Foxburg.

At 86, Dr. Steffee no longer has the energy or the funds to continue to revitalize the small town. He spent several years looking for a buyer, but many people were scared off by the sheer size of the project.

Daniel, also a medical equipment company founder, has now moved into Steffee’s role as the de facto small-town mayor. He and McGauley hired a consulting firm to devise strategies for invigorating Foxburg without bringing in strip malls. Daniel told the outlet he wants to keep Foxburg “quaint.”

— Cailley LaPara