A saloon, a sheriff’s office, dusty streets and more than 85,000 square metres of desert: Western Leone, one of Spain’s best-known surviving western film sets, is on the market for €1.6m. This is no modern theme park, either. Sergio Leone made cinema history here.
Spain Expat Press Editorial Team
Ever dreamed of leaving everything behind, pulling on a pair of cowboy boots and disappearing into the Wild West?
There is no need to move to Arizona or Texas.
Almería will do nicely.
In the extraordinary desert landscape of Tabernas, in southern Spain, an entire western town has been put up for sale.
Its name is Western Leone.
The asking price is €1.6m.
For that, the buyer gets something rather more unusual than the average Spanish property: approximately 85,700 square metres of land, around 1,880 square metres of buildings – and a genuine piece of European cinema history.
Where Sergio Leone made cinema history
Western Leone, formerly known as Rancho Leone, was built in the late 1960s for Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, starring Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda.
The film went on to become one of the defining westerns of its era.
Which means that whoever buys Western Leone will not simply be acquiring a collection of buildings designed to look like the American frontier.
They will be buying an actual film location with more than half a century of history.
The dusty streets, timber façades, saloon, sheriff’s office and other buildings still evoke the period when the arid landscapes of Almería routinely stood in for the American west on cinema screens around the world.
The cameras have continued to return.
More recently, Pedro Almodóvar used the location for his 2023 short film Strange Way of Life, starring Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke.
From €2.8m to €1.6m
The price has an interesting history of its own.
Western Leone was already placed on the market in 2022, when its owners were reportedly asking around €2.8m.
That subsequently fell to about €2.5m.
Now the western town is being offered for €1.6m.
It is a substantial reduction for a property for which finding comparable sales would be, to put it mildly, difficult.
Because this is not simply a question of buying square metres of Spanish real estate.
You are buying a name.
A film location.
A tourist attraction.
And, more or less, an entire town.
What exactly does one do with a western town?
That may be the most interesting question for any prospective buyer.
Western Leone can continue to operate as a tourist attraction and filming location, while its potential uses could also include events, themed weddings, concerts, photography, advertising, music videos and other audiovisual productions.
There is, however, an important catch for anyone already imagining a sprawling luxury resort in the desert.
The land is classified as rural and lies within a protected natural area, meaning there are significant planning restrictions.
Owning more than 85,000 square metres here does not give the buyer carte blanche to build whatever they please.
Yet that restriction may also be part of what has allowed the place to retain its peculiar character.
Western Leone already possesses something that even a very large property-development budget cannot easily manufacture:
history.
When southern Spain became Hollywood’s Wild West
It is easy to forget just how important Almería once was to the international film industry.
During the 1960s and 1970s in particular, the province became one of Europe’s great locations for westerns.
The barren mountains and desert around Tabernas could convincingly become Arizona, New Mexico, Texas or Mexico once a camera began rolling.
International stars, directors and production companies descended on this corner of Andalucía, and hundreds of westerns were filmed in the region.
For a time, one of Europe’s driest landscapes became something approaching Hollywood under the Andalusian sun.
Some of those old sets disappeared.
Others survived.
Western Leone is one of them.
For decades, visitors have walked along its dusty streets, posed outside its wooden buildings and stood on the same ground where some of the most recognisable images of European western cinema were created.
Now the whole place is waiting for a new owner.
‘I bought a town in Spain’
Admittedly, it would make for a rather good answer when somebody asks what you have been up to lately.
For €1.6m, you can buy a handsome villa in Marbella.
You could find a luxury flat in Madrid.
Or, in Almería, you could buy a western town.
Complete with a saloon.
A sheriff’s office.
Dusty streets.
More than 85,000 square metres of land.
And over half a century of film history.
So, if you have always fancied living in the Wild West, this may be your opportunity.
There is just one minor complication.
You will need to find €1.6m before another cowboy gets there first.
