Murray's Beverages building for sale
The 23 Main Street landmark is put on the market for $6.5 million
BY MARY LANCASTER INDEPENDENT WRITER
The Murray's Beverage Store building at 23 Main was placed on the selling block on Thursday for $6.5 million. The Maury People's Frenchy Doucette is the listing agent.

ROB BENCHLEY/The Independent

The business is jointly owned and operated by David Murray, Jr., Bruce and Carl Murray and Cindy (Murray) Cassano. Though the store has been a major family tradition, the Murray decendants say it is time to let it go.

"We are all getting older," said Cindy, noting that though they all have children, the offspring are not interested in inheriting their parents' roles."

Clinton H. and Agnes M. Murray opened Murray's in 1936 and ran it for many years on the upper south side of Main Street. In the 1960s the family moved the business to its present location.

The listing includes the property - a four-story brick building built after the Great Fire of 1846, which still contains some of its original stone founda- tion discovered when Cindy's father Ralph Murray and David Murray, Sr. dug out the cellar to provide storage area.

23 Main in 1966 COURTESY NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASOCIATION

David, Jr. said the liquor store business will be offered as a separate transaction, but did not discuss a price.

He noted that if the purchaser wanted to buy the business and operate it at its present location, that would be acceptable. If the building's buyer does not want the business and no other buyer for it comes along, the partners would consider relocating the store. The four are ready to move on with other things in their lives, such as David's woodworking business and Bruce's work toward creating a Nantucket oyster farm, but there is no sense of urgency in their decision to sell.

"We're not in any rush," said David, Jr. "It's not a fire sale."

23 MAIN REVISITED The Great Fire of 1846 destroyed most of the island's downtown, including 23 Main St. That building, along with the rest on the north side of Main Street, which were mostly wooden structures, was rebuilt soon after the horrific blaze. It was made of brick to withstand any future, similar catastrophe.

Though records of the use of 23 Main are sketchy, according to documents and news accounts at the Nantucket Historical Association's Research Library, a Historic American Buildings Survey performed on the block that extends from 17 to 57 Main St. indicates that prior to 1846, between Federal Street and South Water Street, businesses included a bank, a watch maker, a hatter and the office of William Hadwen before reaching the corner. The section from Federal to North Union Street was known as the Valentine Hussey Block.

George E. Mooers had an auctioneer's, real estate and insurance business at 23 Main St. at an unspecified date. Apparently, from documents, the town's post office was opposite the building at that time.

Around the 1930s, Louis J. Clark had an antiques store in the building, which is well documented in photographs. The Clark building was sold to Clinton H. and Agnes M. Murray, from John J. Gardner II, who had just bought the property from Lawrence Miller the previous week.

According to an undated news article, Clinton Murray viewed the purchase as an investment and intended to continue his liquor store at its leased location. At that same time, Murray offered John Maury, the current lessee of 23 Main St., who in 1954 moved his Emporium business there from North Water Street, a six month lease with option to renew.

Cindy Cassano found an old advertisement printed on Dec. 3, 1981 announcing that the liquor store, as of Dec. 1, 1981 began staying open yearround with an all alcoholic beverage license.

"It has been a long run," said David

Murray, Jr. I