16,000 SQ FT home in Montana goes on sale for just $10 - but there's a major catch for potential buyers

An opportunity to buy an entire house for just $10 has come to market - but there's a significant catch.

Images show a majestic three-floor home spanning more than 16,000 square feet.

Originally built in 1911, Spanish Mission-style building original served the community as a functioning hospital for decades.

In the aftermath of World War II, it was decommissioned by the military in 1947, while the listing specifies it had for at least a short period served as 'medical office space.'

A house in Fort Missoula, Montana, has hit the market for $10 - with the significant condition that the buyers will have to relocate the building to a different parcel of land

Originally known as Old Post Hospital, the structure for decades served as a main medical facility to Fort Missoula, including to local military personal and their families

While the building is up for grabs for a jaw-dropping $10, that too-good-to-be-true price-tag indeed comes with a major drawback. 

The sale is for just the building - and not the land - and the contract for sale stipulates that the new owners must move the actual house off of the lot.

As an extra lure, the sellers have attached a $100,000 moving credit to the sale, earmarked specifically to help the buyer in physically re-locating the structure to somewhere - anywhere - else. 

'The seller's will provide up to $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars) moving credit to help defer moving and transition costs,' the listing states. 

The property in Fort Missoula, Montana, at 3255 Lt. Moss Road, once served the local military-centered community as Old Post Hospital.

As a military base, Fort Missoula was established by the United States Military in 1877, with 25th Infantry Regiment stationed there beginning in 1888.

The road on which the hospital is located was seemingly named after from Lieutenant James Moss, an 1894 West Point graduate put in charge of the 25th Infantry Regiment in 1894.

Built in 1911, the hospital served the community through both the Spanish flu and polio epidemics

During World War II, the hospital also served the Japanese and Italians incarcerated at a nearby internment camp

Not long after the end of World War II, the hospital ceased operations in 1947

Stationed in Fort Missoula, Montana, in the 1890s, the 25th Infantry Regiment was an all-African American infantry who embarked on a series of exploratory expeditions by bicycle

Lt. Moss led the 24th infantry, an all African-American troop alternately known as the Buffalo Soldiers, on a series of lengthy bicycle treks - including a 2,000 mile ride from Fort Missoula to St. Louis.

The purpose of those missions was to test out how effective a tool the bicycle could be as a mode of on-the-ground transport in place of horses.

Despite Lt. Moss' lofty ambitions for the bicycle as a tool for military operations, his superiors disbanded his efforts to promote bicycle operations in 1898 at the dawn of the Spanish-American war, which saw the 25th infantry shipped off to Cuba.

Old Post Hospital was erected a little more than a decade later, and went on to become the main medical facility used by the base's military personnel and their families during the Spanish flu and the polio epidemics.

In the 1940s, Fort Missoula was directly impacted by wartime as it became a base for one of the internment camps holding Italian and Japanese residents.

Throughout their ordeal, Old Post Hospital continued to serve the populations interned at the camps - before ultimately being just down two years after the war ended. 

In 2008, the Old Post Hospital appeared on a list of Missoula's 'Eleven Most Endangered Historic Sites.' The article, by PreserveHistoricMissoula.org, reported that, at that time, the property was owned and used by Western Montana Mental Health Center.

In 2019, the property housing the long-abandoned hospital was acquired by real-estate developer FAE-Wolf.

Last year, in April 2023, Max Wolf of FAE-Wolf penned an op-ed in local paper the Missoulian calling for the preservation of the building. 

Currently, the total cost of restoring Old Post Hospital could be up to $8 million. 

The property was acquired by local developer FAE-Wolf in 2019, with the owner, Max Wolf, initially planning to fund necessary renovations by building new housing nearby

However, FAE-Wolf's proposal to restore Old Post Hospital was struck down by Missoula's Historic Preservation Commission, with the vote upheld in the city council, in February 2024

But, before committing the former Old Post Hospital to demolition, FAE-Wolf elected to put it on the market for $10, on the condition the buyer relocate it

Wolf argued for a plan that would establish new housing, along with some retail space, on the five-acre property on which the original building stands - with the proceeds from the new development funding the restoration of the Old Post Hospital.

The new development, he contended, would be a 'privately funded project on private land that we want to create as a community space for the public.'

He added that conservation purists who'd wish to see the hospital restored with grants alone had yet to put forth a viable plan to bring that goal to fruition.

Unfortunately, by February 2024, the proposal had been struck down by Missoula's Historic Preservation Commission, with the vote upheld in a 7-4 vote by the city council. 

In response to the city council vote, FAE-Wolf released a statement that said in part: 'It is with a heavy heart that FAE-Wolf has been forced to prepare an application for a demolition permit with the City of Missoula to remove the Old Post Hospital.' 

But, before committing the hospital to demolition, FAE-Wolf elected to put it on the market for $10, in a last-ditch attempt to save the structure, allocating the aforementioned $100,000 to assist in the building's removal, as reported by local station KPAX.

On the other side of the argument, one local firebrand blogger accused Wolf of being a 'cultural terrorist' for effectively holding the hospital 'hostage,' with the ransom being the approval of his company's development proposal.

Which brings us to the current juncture. 

The listing is held by David A. Lemm of Clearwater Properties. A 3-D tour of the property can be found here.