Sixty acres of downtown Gay, Georgia — a tiny Meriwether County town of about 110 people — is now on the market for $13.5 million, and the price tag comes with 17 historic buildings, a working craft brewery, and one of the region's biggest recurring festivals. The Summerour family, led by Atlanta architect Keith Summerour, put the property up for sale through Ansley Real Estate Christie's International this month, offering a buyer control of nearly all of the town's commercial core.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the listing represents a rare instance of a private family selling a controlling stake in a rural town center rather than a single building or farm. Gay sits roughly 50 to 60 miles south of downtown Atlanta, and its population of around 110 residents makes the scale of the offering — most of the town's historic downtown in one package — especially unusual for Georgia real estate. As reported by CBS News Atlanta, the sale gives a buyer the chance to own a significant slice of Meriwether County history, wrapped up in one contiguous stretch of Highway 85 frontage.
The portfolio isn't just old buildings sitting empty. It includes active, turn-key businesses generating an estimated $1.26 million in gross annual revenue, per McDonald Realty. That figure spans commercial, agricultural, residential, hospitality, and event income streams tied to the property, making this a working investment rather than raw undeveloped land.
The Cotton Fair And The Brewery Carry The Revenue
The single biggest driver of that income is the Gay Cotton Fair, a biannual event that draws roughly 60,000 visitors and generates about $750,000 in gross annual income, the same report notes. The fair traces back to the 1970s, when local cotton gin and peach packing facilities were repurposed to host it, and it remains the town's signature draw twice a year.
Inside a preserved 1911 general and hardware store in Gay's historic commercial district, Towerhouse Farm & Brewery operates as an active craft taproom pulling in about $510,000 in annual revenue, the same report from CBS News Atlanta details. The brewery stands as the most visible modern business operating inside one of the town's century-old structures, anchoring the downtown block that's now up for sale.
Not Quite Buying A Town
Despite headlines framing the sale as an opportunity to buy an entire town, Gay's volunteer mayor, Christopher Walker, has pushed back on that framing. In a statement, Walker emphasized that while the sale includes the 17 historic buildings and festival grounds, the acreage covers less than 20% of Gay's total land area, and the property being sold sits specifically on the east side of Highway 85 and the railroad tracks. Municipal governance and the rest of the town remain untouched by the transaction.
The offering is structured as two separate listings: a commercial portfolio of 17 historic structures under MLS #7806921, and a 24-acre agricultural parcel listed separately for $6 million under MLS #7831744, according to LandSearch. That agricultural parcel currently provides festival parking, though it also carries potential capacity for future residential development.
A Town Built On Rail And Cotton
Gay's roots go back to 1882, when William Gay opened the community's first store and post office. The town expanded further after a railway line reached the area in 1907, cementing its role as an agricultural and rail hub built around cotton and peach packing. Descendants of William Gay later developed the fairgrounds specifically to preserve the town's historic structures, per CBS News Atlanta's reporting.
That preserved 19th-century architecture and surrounding countryside have made Gay a magnet for film and television productions over the years, including AMC's The Walking Dead, Netflix's Queer Eye, and the 1994 Kevin Costner film The War, the Journal-Constitution reports. Location fees from that production activity contribute to the ancillary income streams baked into the current listing.
The sale also lands amid a broader wave of high-end tourism interest in Meriwether County. Hoodline previously reported that World of Quercus, a four-cabin luxury retreat and tasting-menu ranch along the nearby Flint River, was accepted in March as the sole Georgia member of the global Relais & Châteaux luxury hospitality group. That recognition underscored the region's growing profile among high-end travelers even before the downtown Gay listing hit the market.
Whether a future buyer keeps the Cotton Fair running twice a year, preserves the 19th-century storefronts, or pursues denser development on the agricultural parcel remains to be seen. For now, the listing stands as a snapshot of a small Georgia town's commercial heart, priced and packaged for whoever is willing to write a $13.5 million check.
