Tolstoy Park, Fairhope, Alabama. Photo by Diane Skelton ©2016
How in the world could they move that concrete mass in one piece? I wondered when I heard the story televised on the evening news. The mass is a hand-built, round concrete hut in Fairhope, Alabama, erected over a hundred years ago and the inspiration for Sonny Brewer’s book The Poet of Tolstoy Park. The hut, which once stood on ten acres in the wilderness, is now surrounded by businesses and in danger of demolition.
As I described in my book A Literary Traveler’s Guide to the Gulf South, “The site is easy to miss because it’s hidden in plain sight, sitting partially submerged under a giant oak in a parking lot.” But it’s well worth seeking out for lovers of the written word or people who like weird places. It’s listed on both Atlas Obscura and on the National Register of Historic Places. Henry Stuart built the structure in 1926 after moving from Idaho to Fairhope to die following a diagnosis of tuberculosis. Eccentric, educated, quirky and a curious fellow, Stuart was also dubbed a hermit and poet. He named his sanctuary Tolstoy Park after the Russian author and lived in the hut until 1944 before leaving the area. (Either he was misdiagnosed, or Fairhope is really a healthy place to live!)
Inside Henry Stuart’s hut. The stove is vented through the wall. The domed roof has two vents that look like skylights. Photo by Diane Skelton ©2016
Though the The Poet of Tolstoy Park is fiction, it reads like fact due to Brewer’s research and imagination. Because of the novel, I understand the construction pains Henry Stuart endured to create his domed concrete home. Plus, I’ve been inside the hut – unblemished from dozens of hurricanes over the years. It’s so permanent and strong, I’m baffled how it could be moved even for the guess-timated $200,000.
Author Sonny Brewer, who leased the hut while working on the book, addressed the Fairhope City Council in November of 2023 and proposed collecting donations to move the structure. He already has one donation from Ken Niemeyer, whose family firm Niemeyer Realty owns the property on which the hut stands. Niemeyer says he can’t predict if future generations of his family will save the hut.
A recreation of how Stuart lived. Photo by Diane Skelton ©2016
The old television shows, Massive Moves, Texas Flip ‘n Move, Move This House, and HGTV’s Haulin’ House show the romantic and dramatic aspects of lifting and moving a house. Big trailers haul the structures down small roads, over tight bridges, and under overhanging trees and power lines, as viewers sit on the edge of their couches.
To me, the distance and terrain are not the challenge of relocating Henry Stuart’s hut. It’s the construction. In Brewer’s fictionalized account, he offers a thoroughly credible description of how Stuart built the house single-handedly. Part of the structure is below ground level — you step down to go in. Stuart mixed and hand poured the concrete blocks which create the perimeter below and above ground. Today, plenty of serious digging would have to occur to unearth the home before trying to move the structure.
One relocation suggestion is moving the hut to the Fairhope Museum of History in downtown. Another idea is replanting the hut at Fairhope’s Flying Creek Nature Preserve, a 72-acre nature park bordered by Fly Creek. The creek is often mentioned in Brewer’s book as he imagines Stuart’s experiences along its sandy banks and describes the overhanging dense foliage like an “ancient jungle.” In the late 1900s, writer Craig Turner Sheldon named his semi-weekly column in the Fairhope Courier, “Knee Deep in Fly Creek.” For locals, Fly Creek is a landmark.
The fundraiser to save Henry Stuart’s Tolstoy Park hut is in the planning stages. It was suggested at the city council meeting to send donations to the city, but an official site for accepting donations isn’t on the City of Fairhope website.
The City of Fairhope, founded upon the idea of a single tax colony, has fostered great thinkers and writers since its beginning. Some say Fairhope has more writers per capita than any other city in the country. Hopefully all these great minds will formulate a great idea. For me, moving Henry Stuart’s hut to Flying Creek Nature Preserve would honor Stuart and his hut, pay homage to nature’s influence on writers, and salute the imagination and creativity of Fairhope writers. Dropping the hut right back into nature where it belongs is a really great idea!
Stuart dated the concrete blocks. Looking up towards the roof vents. Photo by Diane Skelton© 2016
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