A home’s location is key. It’s the reason why I pay a painful premium not to live in beige suburban hell, and why lake frontage and mountain views are pricey. Forget mountains—the ultimate location is at the track. Now some lucky track rat can buy the house on Michigan’s Gingerman Raceway.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve offered to move into our local race track. I’ve gotten mail there. I’ve spent the night there. My residence was unofficially listed as “Harris Hill Raceway’s couch” for the longest time. When they built garages at the track, I asked if any of them might come with an apartment.
But most trackside living spaces are just that—apartments, or at the very least, new construction. The home for sale at Gingerman is a Civil War-era fixer upper with real, honest-to-goodness charm.
Restoring the home to its former glory, to track owner Dan Schnitta, would be living the dream. The house came with a 50-acre parcel of land that was connected to the original orchard he purchased to build the track, Schnitta told Jalopnik over the phone. A mechanic who worked on-site was living in the house, but is now marrying Schnitta’s daughter and moving out.
Both the four-bedroom, two-bath house and the horse barn it comes with were built around 1850. It comes with four acres—more than enough to build a modern car-barn for any toys you may have—and around 2800 square feet of living space. The property comes with 300-year-old willow trees and most importantly, there’s an existing garage already with the home.
It’s far enough from the track not to be hit by race traffic, and Schnitta says you can close the gate to it for privacy if need be. But while it doesn’t have as much land with it as it used to, it comes with its own private road down to the race shops and paddock area at Gingerman Raceway.
Gingerman isn’t in a bad location, either—close to Lake Michigan, and with a 2.14-mile track built to host big events like their upcoming SCCA Majors weekend.
The asking price of $680,000 is but a small price to pay to be able to access the track from your house without ever having to go on public streets. None of your fun cars would ever have to worry about being street legal again, nor would you have to worry about trailering your cars just to get some track time in.
[H/T Joseph!]