60-ton house moves across ice on White Bear Lake
Manitou Island, White Bear Lake's tony private island neighborhood, will be short one house this morning.
The house that sheltered generations of caretakers on the island is moving — but only a few blocks away.
Still, for homeowner Doug Kraemer and house mover Terry Semple, who together have picked up and transported a dozen homes in White Bear Lake, this move will be different. They will be wheeling the century-old home across lake ice to make room for potential development on Manitou.
"Honestly, in this economy we're up for anything," said Semple, only half joking. Actually, the lake route is the only one possible.
The bridge that connects the island with the mainland is too narrow and wimpy to support the 60-ton house, Semple said. And with White Bear Lake water levels down 6 feet — meaning the 100-yard-wide channel between the island and Matoska Park is frozen solid in parts — a ride across the ice became plausible.
But that doesn't mean the move is easy. Semple has been trying to thicken the ice in areas by pumping water onto the surface of the lake, and he thinks he has a couple of feet of frozen stuff where he needs it.
The weight of the home will be spread among 64 tires as the house inches over the lake, winched from the far shore.
"It's far more common to tear down a house, sat's one of the neat things about this story — they are saving it," said Sara Hanson, the group's executive director.
The move will allow the Manitou Island Homeowners Association to divide the caretaker's lot into two lots for future building.
The house ultimately will sit on a lot on Sixth Street, just off the corner from Johnson Avenue. But it will have to wait at the back of the lot until spring, when Kraemer can dig a basement and put up a foundation.
This story appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and was written by John Brewer. To read the full article, click the link below:
http://www.twincities.com/ci_11569047
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