NOBODY PUT A ‘for sale’ sign in front of the only good building in town. Whoever had it on the market judged, correctly, that there’d be no passing traffic and no local business interest. They advertised it discreetly on whatever real estate website traffics in sales of big empty buildings in small unlikely places. And no doubt it included a couple of photos taken from an angle that hid the fact that the building, which had been through numerous incarnations in its history, was pretty much derelict. 

We all knew it was technically on the market, just like everything else down the main street; it just wasn’t something people talked about. And I could imagine what the ad had said, too: something about good bones and oozing with heritage history. And restore to former glory. They love that phrase, real estate agents. It lets buyers see themselves as heroes undertaking some kind of ethical rescue, rather than looking for somewhere to park their money.