Nova Scotia Long Cove Farm, a 270-acre oceanfront property on its own peninsula in Nova Scotia, was built at the end of the 18th century by homesteaders from Germany and has had only three owners. The current owner, James Moir, bought the unrenovated farmhouse in 1991 and spent eight years revamping it, retaining the original structure but recreating the interiors to evoke a century-old hunting lodge. "When people visit," said Mr. Moir, "they all think that this was created over 100 years ago, which was one of my desires when I renovated it room by room by room." In addition to the four-bedroom farmhouse, the property has six outbuildings and miles of boardwalks and trails through forests, marshes and meadows. It also has its own suspension bridge. The two-story cedar-shingled farmhouse has pinewood interiors, large old-style windows, and 2,779 square feet of living space, including a screened-in veranda. The family room has a tall fieldstone fireplace, and the living room nearby has an old-style gas stove. The country-style kitchen has painted wood cabinets, birchwood countertops and a wood-burning stove called a Heartland Sweetheart, made by the English company AGA Rangemaster. Much of the furniture is built-in, including several daybeds, lots of cupboards and a desk; the finished basement has storage cabinets for skis, camping gear, clothes and other items. The two baths, one off the ground-floor master bedroom, have fixtures salvaged from old houses, among them clawfoot tubs in pinewood surrounds. In designing the rooms, Mr. Moir said, he consulted period guides like a 1930s issue of House & Garden magazine. Hunting and fishing memorabilia collected over the course of three decades can be included for a negotiable fee. "My dream was to have a place where people want to just curl up in a rocking chair by the fireplaces with the coonhounds at their feet and smoke a pipe and play checkers all day and never leave that room," he said. Outbuildings include a primitive two-story log cabin, a workshop, a boathouse with a ramp and various storage sheds. The property, in the hamlet of Voglers Cove on the south shore of Nova Scotia, has four miles of coastline with a small wharf, a shoreline deck and beaches. Bridgewater, population about 8,200, is about half an hour's drive, as are the picturesque port villages of Lunenburg, a Unesco World Heritage Site, and Mahone Bay. The closest international airport, in Halifax, is about an hour and 45 minutes. As many as half the houses along the south shore, from Halifax to Yarmouth, are owned by nonresidents, primarily Americans, said Al Mosher, a sales associate based in Lunenburg with Keller Williams Realty. Many Americans bought in the early and mid-2000s, when the currency exchange rate with Canada was highly favorable. When the global real estate crisis struck in 2008, most new American buyers disappeared from the market, and prices for waterfront and sea-view homes took a hit. "It wasn't a dramatic drop," Mr. Mosher said, "but prices did level off and drop, probably about 20 percent." However, Canada's regulatory system and the relatively stringent lending standards of its banks eventually reinforced the market's stability, brokers said. Even if individual homes lost value after 2008, price averages in the Halifax-Dartmouth area have grown steadily, according to data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In 2012, the average price of a Halifax-Dartmouth area home was 268,843 Canadian dollars ($260,000). The average for a waterfront home on the south shore is about 325,000 Canadian dollars ($314,000), said Tim Harris, the broker-owner of Tradewinds Realty, which has the listing for Long Cove Farm. If a home has a sea view or a waterfront location, it gets a premium of at least 100 percent, he said. Other popular areas for vacation and second homes include the scenic Annapolis Valley on the northwestern portion of the Nova Scotia peninsula, and Cape Breton, a large island to the northeast, Mr. Harris said. Since 2008, the big buyers of vacation homes in Nova Scotia have been Canadians from other provinces, Mr. Harris said: "Over 95 percent of our buys are now Canadian." The remaining 5 percent are foreigners, mainly from Britain, he said. But after handling a couple of recent home sales to Americans, Mr. Mosher said, he believes "the Americans are starting to come back a little bit." There are no restrictions on foreign buyers in Nova Scotia. The closing costs for resales are nominal, about 1 percent or even less on an expensive home, including the lawyer's fee of 2,000 to 3,000 Canadian dollars ($1,932 to $2,897), Mr. Harris said. While many foreign buyers pay in cash, financing is available, usually for about 65 percent of the purchase price, he said. Official Nova Scotia tourism site: Novascotia.com Nova Scotia Association of Realtors: Nshomeguide.ca Town of Lunenburg: Explorelunenburg.ca Mahone Bay visitor guide: Mahonebay.com English and French; Canadian dollar (1 Canadian dollar=$0.97) Property taxes are about 8,000 Canadian dollars ($7,726) a year. Tim Harris, Tradewinds Realty (902) 275-5613 or (902) 275-7611; Tradewindsrealty.com