COEUR D'ALENE,Id. — A historic Coeur d’Alene house has finally made its way to its new home, albeit through unique means.
Crews successfully transported “The White House” from the Hagadone Marine Center to Casco Bay on Lake Coeur d’Alene Thursday.
The 115-year-old home was donated to John Swallow, a local businessman, courtesy of The Village at Orchard Ridge retirement community. Swallow had planned to transport the home in one piece to land he owns on Casco Bay that is only accessible by boat.
The home was trucked from Orchard Ridge to a parking lot near Cedars via the US-95 bridge overnight before the big move across the lake. Over several hours, the house was then transferred from a large trailer to a barge on the lake.
At about 12:45 p.m., tugboats finally began hauling the massive float towards Casco Bay.
“The float went great,” said Rob Johnson, Swallow’s business partner, in a message sent to KREM 2. “We had a couple setbacks getting the barge on our way ... although many people helped make this happen, we owe a special thanks to the folks at Hagadone Marine for supporting our project.”
The move went through various scheduling changes over the last several days. On Tuesday, Swallow and Johnson had originally said that the move was scheduled for next week. It wasn’t immediately clear why the move was then changed to Thursday.
The home, originally built in 1903, served as the residence for the president of a former college that once taught Coeur d’Alene students. Over time, the house then became property of Orchard Ridge and was nicknamed “The White House” because of its white paint job.
Swallow said he was put in touch with the retirement community when he learned that Orchard Ridge was looking to donate the house to someone who wanted to move it off-site.
"It's classic, it's timeless,” Swallow said earlier this week.
Swallow added that he has a passion for repurposing historic buildings and giving them new uses.
"Seeing this little white house on that bay, you can just see it," he said. "Our idea and our vision is to have it look like the old original homestead for Casco bay."