The home of America’s most beloved spider is up for sale.
The owners of a barn in Brooklin, Maine, where EB White wrote the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web, announced it is for sale this week. The asking price for the entire 44-acre property, where White lived until he died in 1985, is $3.7 million.
The barn inspired the setting of Charlotte’s Web, the novel about the friendship between a wide-eyed pig and an erudite spider. The story takes place almost entirely inside the barn: the site of the two animals’ first meeting, Wilbur’s unsuccessful attempt at spinning a web, and the birth of Charlotte’s children. The classic scene in which Charlotte first attempts to fool the humans into thinking Wilbur is a miracle pig, by spinning the message “SOME PIG!” into her web, also takes place there.
The book has sold at least 25 million copies since it was published in 1952.