Everything is in place for a two-day move May 23-24 of the Angler’s Lodge in Anna Maria from its current location at the corner of North Bay Boulevard and the Lake LaVista inlet to the Anna Maria Historic Green Village at 503 Pine Ave.
Dan Gagne of Gagne Construction, who is managing the move for village developers Mike and Lizzie Vann Thrasher, is constructing a temporary steel bridge to span the inlet and move the house to the vacant lots on the opposite side.
The lodge first will be moved from its foundation to the canal’s edge in preparation for the bridge crossing, he said.
“The plan is to start building the bridge around 7 a.m. on Monday and have the house across by 11 a.m.,” said Gagne.
He estimated it would take about three hours to construct the span, then two hours to get the house across the canal. Removing the temporary bridge will take about two hours. “We anticipate being done by noon,” he said.
The lodge will sit on beams until Tuesday, when it will be hauled to its new foundation in the village.
“We’ll start moving first thing in the morning,” he said. Electricity and cable will be disconnected from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., plenty of time to complete the move to the village, Gagne said with confidence.
Gagne also headed up the move of a cottage last year from 308 Pine Ave. to the Thrashers’ development and is using the same moving company, Johnson & Sons House Movers, for the Angler’s Lodge project.
Once that cottage was placed on a flatbed trailer, the operation took less than an hour and traffic was cleared to use Pine Avenue, Gagne said.
Once the lodge moves onto Pine Avenue, the east end of the street will be closed to vehicular traffic, he added.
Lizzie Vann Thrasher said moving the Angler’s Lodge to the village is a “major task, but we think it’s worth every effort to ensure that it remains part of Anna Maria’s future history.”
Built around 1914, the Angler’s Lodge was used for many years by guests seeking big game fish in the Gulf of Mexico.
After the Cortez Bridge opened around 1924, the lodge also became a hotel for tourists. In recent times, the lodge served as a residence.
A few years ago, owner Agie Hebebrand donated the lodge to the Anna Maria Island Preservation Trust under the condition it be preserved and maintained as a historic location.
The Thrashers already have two homes of significance to Anna Maria’s history at the village: the Sears kit-built cottage and the site’s existing former Rosedale home. The Thrashers readily accepted an offer from Preservation Trust director Sissy Quinn to move the building to their development.
Vann Thrasher acknowledged that the planning needed to get the lodge to the village was a monumental task. However, saving a piece of Anna Maria history makes it well worth the effort, she added.
The Angler’s Lodge is a “beautiful building that we feel deserves a place in our historic green village,” Vann Thrasher said.