Hi all, I really need some help/guidance with this. Its horrible. I will give you the longer version of the story so you can see what I am dealing with/feeling.

My grandparents bought a piece of property in northern Ontario Canada back in the mid 70’s for around $2500. 12 acres of waterfront wilderness on a private lake. The plan was to build a cottage and then my grand parents would move up there when they retire. My grandfather was an engineer. He had his entire family working on building the house by hand. My grandmother, mother, father (my mothers boyfriend at the time), uncle, etc… all worked on building this cottage. Stone by stone, they collected rocks from the forest to build the walls. It was a family heirloom. The property was huge, natural stone extended far out into the lake with swamps on both sides. At some point my grandmother had a stroke. She was bed ridden pretty much for the rest of her life. My grandfather lost interest a put a roof on the house in an unfinished state. Eventually they both passed away. I was a few years old at this time. My parents started taking me up there since I was a new born (1981).  So I pretty much grew up going there my entire life. It was such an amazing place, very private and natural. We would go swimming off the rock. The house wasn’t finished, there was no running water, basic electricity and a wood stove my dad made to keep it warm if we went up in the winter. I knew every stone that was on that property, I would explore, swim, cut the grass ( My parents put me in Charge of the grass cutting and I loved it). We would BBQ and make lots of family memories in the decades to come. Eventually my Uncle didn’t want it anymore. He chose to sell it, so my parent bought his half. Years later I graduated from High school (1999) and started going to college. My mom was getting ready to retire, but she could not because they still had a mortgage and she was the only person that could work. They asked if I had any interest in keeping the Cottage. At the time I took my girlfriend (now wife) up there. She seemed to have good time, but didn’t really seem to like the property. She said he preferred sand on a beach instead of rock. That kinda made me feel bad. To top that off my parents and I rarely went up there. We would only go up a few times a year for a day or two, just to cut the grass and maintain the place. So, I told my parents, Since we didn’t have much fun or go up much anymore, to sell it so they could pay off the mortgage and retire. And so they did. The person that bought it eventually gutted the inside so they could renovate it. Not sure what happened, but the cottage went back on sale shortly after.  At this point I forgot about it, and years passed by. Once I graduated college (2004), I started to have the urge to go up there, now realizing that I couldn’t, thats when reality hit me very very hard. I started to really miss it, to the point of having nightmares. I became very depressed. I made a commitment to myself to somehow, repurchase the cottage If I ever got a good job, won the lottery (Ya I know) or something along that line. Speed up the clock, to 2017. I am still having dreams/nightmares of the cottage. I figured I’d so some research to see if it was for sale again. What I ended up finding was catastrophic. The new 3rd owner (I think), bulldozed the house and built a very large and modern cottage on it. Once I saw this I was crushed. I showed my parents and they also got crushed. Since then, I’ve been looking to somehow feel better, but I think about the cottage almost every day. It feels like part of me died with that place. To make it worse, the person that built this is now renting it on a popular website. Many people are giving amazing reviews. When I read these review is like ripping off a scab and pouring salt in the open wound. This did however give me a little hope, because I thought I could maybe rent it for a week. Problem is, hes renting it for $800 A NIGHT! And its not the original house.  I’ve been trying to look up properties that are similar, to maybe purchase one and regain some of what I miss. Anything that is as nice is hard to find, and if I find it, they are selling for hundreds of thousands. A place like this with a house can easily sell for $1,000,000 now.

So now I am stuck in a nightmare, where I can’t visit the place I love, part of it is gone forever, and I cant do anything about it.

PLEASE HELP!

Thank you

Gerold