Okay, so this is outside Long Beach–but really, if you own an airplane, does that matter? Didn’t you fly to Palm Springs for dinner last night? Didn’t you let Kate Hepburn fly your plane while you opened up a bottle of milk? (Okay, so that happened in “The Aviator”.)

The important thing to keep in mind here is that the Salton City Airport–reportedly the only Federal Aviation Administration-registered airport in California now up for sale–is up for sale. On eBay. In a classified ad.

This raises many as questions as it answers–namely: what’s an airport? Dictionary.com defines it as “a tract of land or water with facilities for the landing, takeoff, shelter, supply, and repair of aircraft.”

And the Salton City? It’s a desert town about an hour southeast of Palm Springs, on the western edge of the state’s largest inland body of water, the Salton Sea–once touted as “Palm Springs with water.”

The Salton Sea, created by an engineering accident 103 years ago when diverted Colorado River water accidentally filled an ancient dry lake, is also one of the state’s most polluted bodies of water, thanks to years of run-off from Imperial Valley agriculture.

But 50 years ago, land developers, midcentury modern architects like Albert Frey–and celebs like Zeppo Marx, Linda Darnell and Desi Arnaz–came within a few hundred thousand dollars (okay, make it a few million) of turning this into a second Palm Springs.

Then, our tastes changed and two back-to-back tropical storms in two disastrous 1970s winters literally flooded the Sea.

Now? Pool skaters skate some of the empty bowls out there. Portions of the Sea are a bird sanctuary. There’s a casino, courtesy of the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians. Salton Sea-adjacent lots appear regularly on eBay for starting bids of around $15,000.

And the airport–all 150 lots/306 acres of it–can be yours for a mere $17.3 million– “or make offer,” as the eBay listing reads. It’ll be up for about another two months. Think about it.

Tags: Albert Frey, bird sanctuary, California, Colorado River, Dave Reul, Desi Arnaz, eBay, Federal Aviation Administration, Imperial Valley, Katherine Hepburn, Linda Darnell, Long Beach, midcentury modern, Palm Springs, Red Earth Casino, Salton City, Salton City Airport, Salton Sea, Southern California, The Aviator, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas, Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, Zeppo Marx