Elaine Knight's Fairytale Purchase in Cape Breton

Have you ever stumbled upon a dream you didn't know you had? That's exactly what happened to Elaine Knight when her niece sent her a link to a castle for sale in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Elaine shares the remarkable story of how she went from seeking a simple property to own a castle, which she plans to transform into a vibrant community space.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Not in a million years, butI think i'd be looking for a castle.
I was looking for something that Icould do, maybe Airbnb, and
I was wanting to do SPA typethings. So I had been looking around
for the last couple of years thatI've been visiting there. I was looking
and my niece sent me this andsaid, with this work, and I
said, yes, it would work. But it's a one of a kind.

(00:21):
I mean, it's not like there'sIt was just a fluke that I
came across it, and it wasa coincidence that my last name is Night
and it just fell together like that. I'm hoping by June that will have
the majority of the messy work done, and then I'm hoping to start renting

(00:41):
out some of the rooms in June, and then by July or August hopefully
we'll be up and running full swing. We've already had some requests for weddings,
We've had requests for people that wantto rent rooms already, so I'm
going to try to really make thisproject move quickly so that we can really

(01:02):
take advantage of the nice weather whenwe're there. The Facebook page is Castle
Knight and we will be documenting thetransformation through through that. So on the
Facebook page, I'll be asking peoplefor ideas of what they would like to
see there. And I have beenapproached by another program that wants to do
an actual TV series about the transformation, but I haven't talked to them yet.

(01:26):
They want to interview me next week. I think this would be my
retirement, but I love planning eventsand fundraisers, and I'm a philanthropist,
so I love raising money for goodcauses, so this will be a very
fun time for me. I'd liketo do maybe some music festivals or arts

(01:48):
the arts have something. Maybe havea little type of a store there that
sells some of the local arts,you know, and any money that I
make usually goes to charity. Anyways, I mean the sky the limit.
I'm just I'm going to be listeningto everybody and to see what everybody would
like. And we don't have tojust make it one or two things.
It can be a whole variety ofdifferent things. I just want to say

(02:09):
thank you to the community for welcomingme and saying such kind things, and
I feel that it's going to be, you know, very a very good
experience for everybody. There's a lotof people who said, oh, I
know that castle. I drive bythat castle, but it'll be nice for
people to say I've been to thatcastle now