Clearing the Lot (Goodbye Lighthouse)
If you read the blog about finding your retirement property, you know that we tried really hard to find an empty lot to build our home on but were unsuccessful, so the lot we ultimately bought already had a house on it. It was a very unique house, built to look like a lighthouse.
Our friend Zaine owned a lot just a few hundred yards from our lot and one afternoon over beers, he and Tony hatched a plan to move the lighthouse off of our property onto his empty lot. He contacted a LaRue House Movers and got a quote for moving it. For $29,500 the company would move the property and hold it 9 feet off the ground until a new foundation could be constructed, then they would lower the house onto the new foundation. This did not include the cost of the foundation or disconnecting and reconnecting the utility lines between the two addresses.
Zaine did some further investigation regarding some modifications he wanted to make to the structure. Building restrictions would not allow him to put the addition on the house that he wanted, so he ultimately decided against the project and subsequently sold his lot.
We decided that if the house could be moved, maybe someone else would like to have it. It would save us the cost of demolishing it, so we advertised it on the Facebook Amelia Island Fernandina Beach Network and the Facebook Amelia Island Virtual Sale.
It caught the attention of the local newspaper and the Jacksonville TV news.
We appeared on Action News JAX a couple of times.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/free-fernandina-beach-home-offered/474393499
Sixteen people contacted us about moving the house. Some were more serious than others and went so far as to get estimates but none were able to justify the cost of moving the house.
The last folks who expressed interest were a couple from Wisconsin who wanted to make the lighthouse the headquarters for their ministry. The charitable donation to their non-profit would have been a nice deduction for us, but they didn't have a nearby lot to put it on and couldn't raise the funds to move it.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/free-nassau-county-lighthouse-may-have-a-new-owner/585643372
Hurricane Irma did her best to get rid of the lighthouse for us but it wasn't quite enough. She blew the doors in and shifted the center beam. After that, I'm not sure the house could have withstood a move anyway.
Irma was a deciding factor on when to start our building too. We decided to wait until January when most of the crews were no longer busy with hurricane repairs.
Since we weren't able to salvage the structure, I decided to try to rehome the furnishings. A couple from Savannah got the kitchen cabinets. A young couple from Yulee took the refrigerator. A fellow a few doors down got the dishwasher. The bedroom suits went to two different families. The microwave was donated to the Humane Society Thrift Shop. Two things I really wanted to preserve were the ceiling of the crows nest and the spiral staircase. I put them on craigslist hoping that someone would be able to take them down and save them but I got no takers.
Our builder scheduled the demolition to take place on January 10th. On January 9th, I posted a notice to the Amelia Island Fernandina Beach Network Facebook page to give the locals one last chance to see it before it was demolished. The post got over 200 comments, over 400 "likes" and over 100 "shares". People had mixed feelings about it, but most comments were positive and supportive.
Tony and I spent most of the day before the demolition trying to save the spiral staircase. We got the steps down and the handrail but we couldn't get the center post out.
We had one or two (or 30) friends over the night before the demolition for a final champagne toast to Green's Light! We were glad the old place could support that many people!
We watched the beginning of the demolition from our friends' house next door and then moved across the street to watch from the front. I took a lot of video and spliced it together into a 12 minute clip. At 10 minutes and 30 seconds, you'll hear me say, "He got it". I'm referring to the center post for the spiral stairs! A few minutes later you can see Tony and our friend Steve carrying the post away. I'm going to try to find a home for it. It's a beautiful piece!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP_5LeXy13w
Two hours later, we had a pile of rubble.
Two days later, we had a cleared lot, ready to build Sand Torini!
Stay tuned!
Our friend Zaine owned a lot just a few hundred yards from our lot and one afternoon over beers, he and Tony hatched a plan to move the lighthouse off of our property onto his empty lot. He contacted a LaRue House Movers and got a quote for moving it. For $29,500 the company would move the property and hold it 9 feet off the ground until a new foundation could be constructed, then they would lower the house onto the new foundation. This did not include the cost of the foundation or disconnecting and reconnecting the utility lines between the two addresses.
Zaine did some further investigation regarding some modifications he wanted to make to the structure. Building restrictions would not allow him to put the addition on the house that he wanted, so he ultimately decided against the project and subsequently sold his lot.
We decided that if the house could be moved, maybe someone else would like to have it. It would save us the cost of demolishing it, so we advertised it on the Facebook Amelia Island Fernandina Beach Network and the Facebook Amelia Island Virtual Sale.
We appeared on Action News JAX a couple of times.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/free-fernandina-beach-home-offered/474393499
Sixteen people contacted us about moving the house. Some were more serious than others and went so far as to get estimates but none were able to justify the cost of moving the house.
The last folks who expressed interest were a couple from Wisconsin who wanted to make the lighthouse the headquarters for their ministry. The charitable donation to their non-profit would have been a nice deduction for us, but they didn't have a nearby lot to put it on and couldn't raise the funds to move it.
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/free-nassau-county-lighthouse-may-have-a-new-owner/585643372
Hurricane Irma did her best to get rid of the lighthouse for us but it wasn't quite enough. She blew the doors in and shifted the center beam. After that, I'm not sure the house could have withstood a move anyway.
Irma was a deciding factor on when to start our building too. We decided to wait until January when most of the crews were no longer busy with hurricane repairs.
Since we weren't able to salvage the structure, I decided to try to rehome the furnishings. A couple from Savannah got the kitchen cabinets. A young couple from Yulee took the refrigerator. A fellow a few doors down got the dishwasher. The bedroom suits went to two different families. The microwave was donated to the Humane Society Thrift Shop. Two things I really wanted to preserve were the ceiling of the crows nest and the spiral staircase. I put them on craigslist hoping that someone would be able to take them down and save them but I got no takers.
Our builder scheduled the demolition to take place on January 10th. On January 9th, I posted a notice to the Amelia Island Fernandina Beach Network Facebook page to give the locals one last chance to see it before it was demolished. The post got over 200 comments, over 400 "likes" and over 100 "shares". People had mixed feelings about it, but most comments were positive and supportive.
Tony and I spent most of the day before the demolition trying to save the spiral staircase. We got the steps down and the handrail but we couldn't get the center post out.
We had one or two (or 30) friends over the night before the demolition for a final champagne toast to Green's Light! We were glad the old place could support that many people!
The morning of the demolition, we went to the lighthouse at 6AM to try to get the center post for the staircase out one more time, but when the demolition crew arrived we had to abandon the mission. We asked if they could get it down for us. They said they would try, but the only tool they brought was the excavator.
We watched the beginning of the demolition from our friends' house next door and then moved across the street to watch from the front. I took a lot of video and spliced it together into a 12 minute clip. At 10 minutes and 30 seconds, you'll hear me say, "He got it". I'm referring to the center post for the spiral stairs! A few minutes later you can see Tony and our friend Steve carrying the post away. I'm going to try to find a home for it. It's a beautiful piece!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP_5LeXy13w
Two hours later, we had a pile of rubble.
Two days later, we had a cleared lot, ready to build Sand Torini!
Stay tuned!
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