By JARED GOLDBERG-LEOPOLD
Published February 22, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - The 1930s log cabin stands out in the Old Northeast - not only for its architecture but for the series of local legends tied to it.
As rumor would have it, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and other Yankee greats used the old cabin as a clubhouse and hangout.
The cabin, which has stood incongruously in the Old Northeast for almost 70 years, is now headed to a more natural habitat - rural Hillsborough County.
"The thing is going where it probably should have been to begin with, out in the woods basically," said Michael Hambleton, whose father purchased the property at 746 14th Ave. NE last August for $597,000. Hambleton, who now lives in Crescent Lake, and his father, who's from Georgia, aim to build two houses on the property. To clear room to build the houses on the double lot, Hambleton searched for someone to take the cabin while preserving its historic value.
He found Sabrina Hendricks and Bruce Mills, a St. Petersburg couple who wished to move to the country. Earlier this month, the couple purchased a lot near Hillsborough River State Park, where they plan to move the cabin and make it their home within the next year or so.
"We'd always loved this particular cabin, we knew about it and we'd always thought we'd like to own it," Hendricks said. "This is not just a home to us, this is a building that we actually have affection for, that we honor and want to give back its beauty."
But moving - and preserving - a historic log cabin is no easy task.
So far, the couple have dismantled three rooms in the four-room bungalow, labeling every log on the way so they can rebuild it the same way. The labeled logs are stacked on the property, next to the one remaining room.
"It's sort of like Lincoln logs," Hendricks said.
They have left the living room intact because of the drawings they found on the log walls, Hendricks said. She said she had heard that Walt Disney had drawn on the walls when he stayed in the cabin while searching for a Central Florida location for his theme park. But so far, they have been unable to authenticate the purported Disney artwork.
The cabin, built in 1936, was originally sold in 2002 by a woman who had lived there for almost 50 years. The new owners put the property up for sale again in 2003, prompting a neighborhood movement to keep the cabin intact.
Then, Michael Hambleton's father, Bert, bought the property in August 2003. Bert, a retired pilot from Duluth, Ga., aimed to build his retirement home there.
But the cabin stood in the way.
Michael Hambleton did not want to ruin the legendary cabin, so he gave it to Mills and Hendricks.
"He didn't want it torn down; he didn't want to see it taken to the dump," Hendricks said of Hambleton. "It's our intention to restore it completely and give it the right place to be, in the country, where a cabin really is best."
