(Updated with additional information from a family member)

You may have seen the youtube video about a guy who bought an abandoned home in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland – the one where it was bought sight unseen – and his effort to restore the house that has racked up an insane 5 million views in a week. The story of its restoration has captivated viewers worldwide, but what about the story of the house itself and the family who first called it home?

Michael “Mick” Ryan, was born in 1886 to Denis Ryan and Margaret Power in the small, remote inlet of Deep Cove near Presque, Placentia Bay. At 22, Mick married 20-year-old Anna Maria Hunt on December 7, 1907, at St. Kyran’s. Anna Maria was originally from St. Joseph’s—born to Tom Hunt and Anne Traverse—but had been living in Bona, likely employed as a domestic maid at the time of their marriage.

Mick and Anna Maria would eventually settle proudly in her hometown of St. Joseph’s. The traditional clapboard biscuit-box house, built by their young son Martin—now the focal point of that famous 2025 YouTube vlog—stood near Anna Maria’s parents in Hunt’s Cove, who lived right next door over a century ago. The couple raised children in St. Joseph’s: Martin, Thomas, Maurice, Robert, and Stella Mary. As was common in early 20th-century Newfoundland, Mick, who had no formal schooling and could not read or write, fished for a living, while Anna Maria, who could read and write, likely handled most of the household business. Fishing in those days began at 12 or 13 years old for boys and would continue until retirement. As their son Martin grew into an adult, he began building a home near his childhood home, where his parents were later join him.

St. Joseph’s, originally named Gallow’s Harbour, is located on the western side of Placentia Bay. The name Gallows, as oral history relates, comes from a supposed hanging that had been carried out in the Barron’s Cove area of the community. The name would eventually be changed by a Catholic priest, Father Morris, who didn’t feel the name was appropriate, in the late 1800s. As relayed by politician and historian Joey Smallwood, St. Joseph’s location had a “ready source of wood, water, ice, and in season, supplies of herring, capelin, and squid, making it a favourourite rendezvous for western boats and banks.” The remote tidal island part of the community is named Pushthrough Head, of which Hunt’s Cove is an indenture on. The community grew over time and by the 1920s there were over 30 houses and more than 35 families, 42 fishing boats, 40 acres of cultivated land, over 100 sheep, and for a brief period 11 lobster canning operations.

Yet tragedy, as it often did in those harsh times, struck Mick and Anna Maria early on. Anna Maria’s father, Thomas Hunt, passed in 1927, followed by her mother, Anne (Traverse) Hunt, in 1932.

In the midst of the Great Depression in 1935, the Ryan home was recorded as being worth 100 Newfoundland Dollars. A figure that is now roughly equivalent to $2240 Canadian dollars in 2025. 5 rooms, in total, were recorded at the time. The property would be the hub of the family life – at the time, Mick and Ann Maria’s young son’s family would be living with them in the house as well. Thomas and his wife Johanna are shown with their toddler Jenine living in the small Newfoundland home together with Thomas’s parents and siblings. It’s a cramped vision to imagine—especially if you’ve seen the vlog footage of the house as it currently stands. In that same year, in the cod fishery Mick Ryan made 150 Newfoundland dollars, his 26 year old son Martin made 30 Newfoundland dollars, 21 year old Maurice made 30 Newfoundland dollars and 24 year old son Thomas made 180 Newfoundland dollars.

Heartbreak visited the family one again when on June 26, 1940, Maurice Ryan’s life unfortunately would be cut short when he died aged just 25 years and 11 month. His headstone, now toppled in the St. Joseph’s cemetery, bears the inscription, “Parents and Friends I Must Leave You, Leave Yes, Leave You All Alone, For My Heavenly Father, He Has Called Me, Called Me to His Blessed Home.”

Still, life pressed on. By the end of the Second World War, times were looking up, and Mick Ryan would make $500 in the year proceeding 1945, more of his children had built homes around him in the decade preceding, raising his grandchildren on adjacent parcels of land.

St. Joseph’s, at the time, was a bustling community of 200-300 people. The primary occupation was the inshore fishery, but some men used to spend the winter months with skippers who went to the Grand Banks. Garden parties were often held, and kitchen parties, where nearly everyone in the harbour would play an instrument or two, would be prevalent. A dance together on a Saturday night after a hard week’s work was often planned and the accordions would sound across the ocean filling the surrounding coves and harbours.

Ultimately, Mick Ryan passed away on June 23, 1962, aged 77, and Ann Maria (Hunt) Ryan would pass in 1971. As the Newfoundland resettlement program drew near, Mick and Ann Maria’s grandson Joseph Picco (Stella’s son) would be the last individual in the family to own the home that Martin built.

Used by relatives as a cabin the intervening years, it wasn’t until 2024 that the home would be exchanged through a shake of hands, this time to adventurer Matthew Clarke, who sought to bring the once-forgotten house new life. Little did anyone suspect that his leap of faith would spark a viral sensation, drawing millions of viewers around the globe to witness the resurrection of this historic piece of Newfoundland heritage – and the rest is youtube history.

Watch ‘I Bought an Abandoned House on a Remote Island – 6 Months In’ below: