The world’s tallest thermometer is for sale. Here’s how much it costs – UK Times

The world’s tallest thermometer may be used to rising temperatures — but now it is feeling the heat of the real estate market instead.

The 134-foot structure, which rises above Interstate 15 in the Mojave Desert between between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, is included in a $1.85 million listing for a 4.3-acre property in Baker, California. The listing describes the landmark as a globally recognized roadside icon and “at its core, 134 feet of vertical advertising space.”

The roadside attraction has recently been refurbished and is now “up and running better than ever,” listing broker Baron Castillo, owner of Apartment Building Investments, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He said the thermometer could also be upgraded with digital signage for branding or logos.

The family of the late Baker businessman Willis Herron, who invested $750,000 in building the thermometer in 1991, still owns the property but says it is now time to pass it on to a new owner.

“As several of us reach retirement age, we find we can no longer spend the hands-on time here that we would like,” family members wrote on the World’s Tallest Thermometer website. “While a few of our heirs live locally, they have developed their own busy careers, and others have settled out of state, meaning there is no one in the next generation available to step into daily operations. To ensure the thermometer’s long-term preservation and allow it to reach its full potential, we have decided the time is right to find its next visionary owner.”

The property also includes an EV charging station and a retail building housing the souvenir shop Temp 134, which serves steady traffic between Southern California and Southern Nevada. Castillo said the shop could be redeveloped into a restaurant, café or microbrewery, giving travelers a place to stop while their vehicles recharge.

“That would be the best use for it, I believe,” Castillo told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Positioned along Baker Boulevard, the towering thermometer serves as a gateway to Death Valley National Park, a region known for extreme heat. Death Valley set the record for the highest air temperature ever recorded on earth in the summer of 1913, reaching 134 degrees, according to the National Park Service.

The property sits in Baker, an unincorporated desert town in San Bernardino County covering just 2.7 square miles. It is home to just 442 residents as of 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

The landmark has been part of the desert landscape since the early 1990s. Built in 1991, it was reportedly knocked over by high winds before being rebuilt with stronger reinforcements to withstand harsh desert conditions. It was officially lit and put into operation in 1992, according to the World’s Tallest Thermometer website.

It isn’t the only notable landmark along the I-15, theLas Vegas Review-Journal reports.

There is also the famously misspelled Zzyzx Road sign about 95 miles southwest of the Vegas Strip and a graffiti-covered former water park roughly 130 miles from the casino corridor.