Something that used to be good, but due to a combination of shoddy planning, dumb bad luck and inability to replicate previous successes, has become a piss-poorshadow of itself.
"Hey, whatever happened to (some guy)? He was top of his class and now he's homeless."
"Yeah, he's a classic Sri Lankan cricket team."
A Shackteau is a humble, weather-beaten, structurally questionable shelter located in a spectacular or highly coveted place—Wales, Jackson Hole, Sun Valley, Crested Butte, coastal Maine, the Alps—where the building itself may be worth almost nothing, but the dirt, view, access, and mythology make it absurdly valuable.
In use:
Shackteâu - We thought it was an abandoned shed until the realtor called it a rare alpine Shackteâu with unobstructed views and listed it for $2million.