10 Bedrooms, No Bathrooms: Inside A $1.5 Million Amish Farmstead (47 Photos)

We recently looked at an eight-bedroom Amish home with just one bathroom – which I imagine many found to be an extreme bedroom-to-bathroom ratio.

But this Owingsville, Kentucky Amish property one-ups that one – having a whopping 10 bedrooms – but no bathroom whatsoever (outhouse is what they’d use).

There are one or two caveats here – the bedroom count includes the main house, as well as the second, smaller home – a structure typically known by the Amish as a dawdihaus, and traditionally meant for the grandparents to live in after they “retire” from full-time farming.

Such a home might also be occupied by a young family. There is also a small apartment on the property. So it’s a true multi-generational Amish farmstead.

But despite lacking plumbing and electric, the property is currently listed for sale at $1.5 million. So why the high price?

The answer is simple – it comes with 160 acres of land. This is one of the largest acreages we’ve looked at here before, probably the largest in fact.

And it’s the highest price tag I’ve seen for an Amish property online so far, beating the million-dollar Amish home. It also comes with multiple structures including a large workshop, adding to the overall value.

Here’s the property description via Zillow:

160-Acre Amish Farm with Multiple Homes, Barns & Business Opportunity. Spanning 160 acres, this exceptional Amish farm offers a rare combination of residential, agricultural, and business potential. The property features three ponds, expansive fields, and a wide array of well-maintained buildings.

The main residence is a 3,348 sq. ft. home with six bedrooms and a 1,632 sq. ft. basement, providing ample living space. A second home offers 3 bedrooms, 1,646 sq. ft., and a 1,250 sq. ft. basement, while an additional 2-bedroom apartment is also available.

Farm structures include a 60×32 horse barn with a 50×36 extension, 120×42 calf barn, 36×72 tobacco barn, 32×72 tool shed, plus multiple utility sheds (20×32 and 16×32). A massive 72×168 building currently serves as a workshop for constructing small cabins and sheds on-site, creating an excellent business opportunity.

The property has water and electric access, with service connected to the cabin/shed workshop. All other structures remain traditional, without interior plumbing or electricity, in keeping with Amish design.

This farm provides an outstanding opportunity for multi-family living, farming, livestock, or expanding an existing business – truly a one-of-a-kind property with endless possibilities.

Now if you do the math, that comes out to eleven bedrooms, not 10 (6 in the main home + 3 in the secondary home + 2-bedroom apartment). I’m not sure if they got something wrong, but the listing has it’s “total” bedroom count at 10, so that’s what I went with.

Now that we’ve covered that, let’s have a look inside the main home.

Kitchen

The kitchen of the main home has a homey feel, with beautiful flooring and classic Amish notes like the wood cookstove and teardrop oil lamps.

The home as mentioned does not have standard plumbing. In plainer Amish homes you will often enough see a water cooler like the one in the corner here for drinking water.

Here’s the pantry room with supplies to feed a good-sized family.

Living Room

The living room is quite cozy and has a classic Amish look, with hickory rockers and gliders covered in maroon-toned seat cushions. I really like the feel conveyed by this photo.

These photos, by the way, are a bit on the darker side, reflecting what a plainer Amish home can look like during the daytime, relying only on natural lighting.

Another angle shows us the maroon and pink color-coordinated decor, and a row of hooks for hanging hats, coats and the like.

Bedrooms

Here’s the first bedroom. Note the hunting firearms on the wall. Note: not all bedrooms’ photos are included in the listing, but we’ll see most of them.

Quite a contrast with the pink pillows. This is probably the parents’ bedroom, which is usually located on the ground floor in Amish homes, with children’s and additional bedrooms typically on the second floor in two-story homes.

We also have here what looks like a walk-in closet, not something you see too much of in Amish homes. This photos gives you a sense of the limited array of clothing colors you’ll see, in this community at least.

Other Amish communities will tend to favor other color schemes and even some brighter colors like yellows and pinks, especially in more progressive communities.

I don’t know if something can be both “plain” and “sumptuous” at the same time, but those are the two words that popped into my head casting my eyes on this next bedroom:

Or maybe “lavish” would fit. Both the furniture and the decor reflect an appreciation for aesthetics that you might not immediately associate with the Amish.

And I’m pretty sure this room is the one that will make some people say “that’s not Amish!” But the reality is, some Amish homes – even from plainer, no-plumbing communities like this one – contain these kinds of surprises.

By contrast, this bedroom is much simpler – also appearing to be a girl’s bedroom:

Reverse view from the same room:

And here’s likely an older girl’s bedroom (note the decor and name on the wall), also containing a safe.

This is not uncommon to see in Amish homes. The safe is a Winchester model, and looks heavy-duty:

And a boy’s bedroom. Two things of note: the guns, and the fan.

The fan is battery-powered, which you can better see in this photo. This is the only home I see on this property with this luxury:

Now we come to the second caveat – there is no plumbing, and no toilet – but they do have a bathing space, where they have a basic tub. The water would need to be heated for washing, so you’re not taking twice-daily showers in a home like this.

One other photo – I’m not quite sure what the wringer washer is doing here. They’re usually in a utility room.

Additional Kitchen

This home apparently contains an additional kitchen area, which you can see in the next two photos. Looking through the window we can see this space sits adjacent to a nice covered porch area, which we’ll see in just a second.

Here’s that covered porch area, with places to relax, a picnic table to eat a meal, space for washing (note the engine which generates power attached to the washer), and even laundry lines for all-weather drying.

The Second Home

Here we have the second, smaller home, which adds another three bedrooms to the main home’s six.

And here, from what I can tell by the way the photos are arranged, we have the kitchen belonging to that second home.

Cozy living room area.

A daybed, good for afternoon naps. I’d have a problem with that grandfather clock chiming right next to my head though. I guess it helps keep your nap from going on too long.

And one of the bedrooms of this second home.

Another “bathroom” space. Again no plumbing, so no toilets here. That’s a manual hand pump for water. But if you want warm or hot water, you’re going to have to heat it.

Kerosene stove in a utility area. This setup can make for a “summer kitchen”.

And the basement houses some exercise equipment, among other items.

The Apartment

Here is – from what I can tell, though I’m not 100% sure as there’s just this one photo of the exterior – the structure with the apartment.

In any case, it’s not uncommon for Amish families in some places to construct a multi-purpose building which can feature as a garage/meeting space (for church service and other gatherings) – and which often has an apartment on the second floor, or even on the first floor.

Again, these photos in the listing are not labeled, and there are dozens of them, but from how they’re laid out, I believe the following shots are from the apartment space.

Compared to the living quarters we’ve already looked at in the houses, it looks to be the newest construction here.

Pink and orange feature in this place. That’s a musical chime clock on the wall, of a kind commonly-seen in Amish homes.

A view from the opposite side. This place also has a heavy-duty safe.

And the “pseudo” bathroom area, similar to the other we’ve seen. So this property should have at least one outhouse building, though I wasn’t able to definitely identify where it is from the included photos. Likely tucked away around back.

And one of the additional two bedrooms in this place (so assuming the counts are right, we are up to at least 10, possibly 11).

Notice the embroidered pillow case coverings with a man and woman’s name – the main home also had these. A nice touch for a married couple.

And, this would be the ground floor area of the structure. Large useful space, which has enough room to seat 100+ people for church services, and can double as a recreation room. Game of foosball anyone?

Outside

Finally a look around the property. There is a lot of acreage here -depending on the type of land, 160 acres could be room enough for two or three Amish dairy farming families.

Here’s the large workshop mentioned in the description:

And inside, we see a quite long portable structure that looks like it’s nearing completion, if not there already.

And here we have one of the property’s three ponds, with some of the business’ structures probably waiting to be shipped out to their final destinations.

So there you have it. As far as the living quarters, tt would take some “Englishizing” as most Amish homes do, to get it up to non-Amish standards.

But this Amish farmstead could make for a very interesting property for the right buyer, with additional rentable spaces in the second home and apartment. The warehouse/workshop and secondary buildings also provide an opportunity for entrepreneurial use.

This property is represented by Christopher Conn of RE/MAX Creative Realty.