After a while, Ensen got out of bed and walked over to his kitchen while trying to hold in a yawn. He grabbed a quick gla.s.s of milk and began heating the stove, deciding he wanted to make a simple grilled cheese sandwich.
He began sloppily combining the ingredients. After a few minutes of cooking, he took the slightly scorched grilled cheese out of the pan and ate it quickly, wanting to get on the road. Ensen was slightly hopeful towards this new plot, and he was also extremely curious about it.
This particular plot of land was vastly different from the others. It was just slightly out of town, near a lake. It was a vast amount of land compared to the previous 2 plots, and there was a bonus... or drawback depending on how you saw it. There was an old school built on the ground, it wasn't a big school but any means, simply a few rooms but it was still something. From the pictures in the listing, it seemed pretty well maintained but you could never trust those pictures. So while his expectations slightly rose, he tried keeping a level head.
Ensen quickly got dressed and made his way to his car, driving through multiple districts of the city before arriving just outside the city borders. In reality, this area was not as bad as it seemed. While it was slightly outside the city, the upper-cla.s.s district was located very close to this area. Keeping this information in his mind, he soon arrived at the potential plot.
The first thing he noticed when arriving at the plot was the sheer size of it. The plot dwarfed the others by several times. This was for two main reasons, first, it was outside of the city and in a slightly inconvenient place. But the second and greater reason was because of the school building itself. While Ensen considered it a possible a.s.set and benefit in buying the plot, almost all other people thought of it as something that needed to be torn down.
In addition to this, tall trees surrounded the plot, leading to a private and enclosed feeling. This would be very advantageous for what Ensen envisioned for his private academy.
The plot itself was obviously not well maintained. The gra.s.s was heavily grown and places and there were small animal footprints scattered about the place. But on the bright side, they seemed mostly harmless. Ensen got out of his car and approached the plot. The pavement stretching from the road to the school had long been reclaimed by the earth, in its place was gra.s.s. The pavement was barely peeking out from the earth as if trying to reclaim its former glory.
Ensen looked at the small building in the center of the lot. It was nothing like the pictures at all. In fact, Ensen wondered if they took pictures of a separate school. The yellow sidings were falling apart, seemingly ripped off by... something, most likely kids fooling around. In the front, the steps were visibly rotten, This was most likely because of no maintenance and general bad design. Trying to ignore the obvious mess the school would have inside, Ensen decided to take a look around back before entering the building.
When Ensen turned around back, he noticed the gorgeous lake was quite close to the building. Only around 50 feet away. While there was no indication if the coast of the lake would be included in the property, he sure hoped so. It would be a beautiful addition if he could build benches and such near the lake for the students to study. But he was getting ahead of himself, he hadn't even seen the interior of the school yet, and if the exterior said anything about it, then it would be a lot of work.
After staring at the lake for a while with a look of longing, Ensen decided to enter the rundown school. Approaching the entrance, he noticed the windows were slightly crooked as if a testament to the age of the building. Trying to ignore the fact, he quickly opened the squeaky, barely working doors. He first entered a surprisingly wide hallway.
The hallway itself wasn't too bad when compared to the exterior. The walls were old dark oak planks that were seemingly taken from the surrounding trees. There were a few that were either damaged or fell off the wall, but most were in relatively good condition. Turning his attention to the floor, he noticed... there wasn't one.
The floor had been ripped up, leaving small bits of broken wood on the ground, with cheap plywood concealing some of the worst spots as if trying to mask the safety hazards for potential buyers. The floor in this room needed to be completely replaced.
Carefully maneuvering through the non-existent flooring, Ensen arrived at the closest room on the left. The room seemed to be used as a cla.s.sroom. There were a few old scratched desks thrown carelessly around the place, along with three chairs just stacked in the middle of the room... for whatever reason. Trying to ignore the complete state of the room, he focused his gaze on the walls instead. Similar to the hallway the walls were in relatively good shape. There were also several large windows overlooking the beautiful forest surrounding the area. The floor was much better when compared to the hallway, with old oak flooring throughout the room. While it was still not flawless, it was much better.
Overall, this room was actually pretty sizable considering the tiny building. It could probably fit around 20 desks, give or take depending on the layout of course. Generally speaking, that was more than enough for the cla.s.s size Ensen had in mind.
Ensen soon left the room, overall satisfied with the cla.s.sroom. He slowly crossed the hallway carefully, making sure he avoided stepping on any nails or other crude sections of the hallway. Upon entering the next room, he quickly identified what seemed to be the school office. This was due to the remains of a nice mahogany office desk in the center of the room. This room was fairly small, unlike the cla.s.sroom. But Ensen was okay with this, as the office didn't need to be big in the first place. There was room for a desk, chair, and maybe a table and couch for students waiting.
He noticed a doorway near the back left of the room. Entering it, Ensen instantly fell in love with this room. On the right side of the room, was a wide window showcasing the beautiful forest, and on the back wall was a nice fireplace. This was the princ.i.p.als' room. Unlike the other rooms, this room was barely touched, with just a few scratching on the flooring.
With a satisfied smile, Ensen continued exploring the remaining rooms. There was one other nearly identical cla.s.sroom as well as a smaller room with a broken piano at the center, this was the music room.
After that, he continued looking around a little more, going through each room and inspecting it more closely this time. Through that, he managed to find several faults and potential dangers that would have to be rectified before the building could be used. After all, who knows how long ago this place was built, it was not up to building standards of today.
Once he was completed looking at the building, Ensen returned outside, taking a final glance at the building. It truly was a lot of work, but his heart was set on this area. It had nearly everything he wanted. A peaceful and private environment because of the forest and stunning lake, a large plot of land for future development, and more. There were some downsides to this too, for example, the rundown schoolhouse would have to be heavily renovated or even completely rebuilt, but he still thought the benefits outweighed the negatives.
It goes without saying, Ensen had a lot of thinking to do. This place also wouldn't necessarily entice students, in the short-term at the very least. Plus the cost would be immense for him to both buy the property, fix and update the schoolhouse to current building standards.
While in deep thought, Ensen returned to his car, driving silently to a nearby fast-food restaurant. He ordered his favorite meal from there, a simple burger and poutine. After that, he began heading home for the day. Although it was not too late yet, Ensen rarely stayed out late. He rather preferred staying inside and watching doc.u.mentaries and similar things.
Unlike most people in the education sector, Ensen was a very introverted individual. This by no means hurt his career and his teaching style. It just made it different than a lot of other teachers.
Ensen arrived home after a long drive through rush-hour traffic, slowly eating his burger on the way. When he got to his apartment building, he quickly entered the home, anxious to eat his poutine and relax after such a day.
He decided to watch a nature doc.u.mentary while thinking about just what he should do with about the land. After finishing the 3 hours long doc.u.mentary, Ensen slowly drifted to sleep on the couch.
