It had the makings of everything Minnesotan: A cruel wind chill well below zero, a North Country fashion show of gawking onlookers and a 60-ton house reeled like a fish across White Bear Lake on ice that was 2 feet thick.

"It will be a win-win for everybody if we make it to the other side," said Doug Kraemer, who bought the 1880s-era house and paid about $40,000 to move it Wednesday from the lake's Manitou Island to yonder shore about 100 yards away. He wasn't the only one crossing his fingers. Many of the onlookers expected to see a frigid splash of historic proportions.

After workers placed dollies with 64 tires under the gray wood-frame house, used as a gatekeeper's residence on the island, a huge tow truck eased forward, stretching a steel cable until it was taut. The ice ahead shimmered like a groomed hockey rink. The truck tugged, the house crept, and the move was on.

"How many times do you get to see a house on the ice?" marveled Monty Fagnan of Lino Lakes. Fagnan's buddy Randy Larson of White Bear Lake joked that it was the biggest ice house he ever saw. He and Fagnan fantasized about using it for fishing.

Kraemer and the mover, Terry Semple of Semple Building Movers of St. Paul, didn't take the weather for granted. Last weekend, they pumped water onto the ice to make it thicker. Kraemer calculated that the lake level was 2 feet below normal, and said tests showed that the ice sat on about a foot of water and muck. And Denice Semple, Terry's wife, said the company hired an engineer who advised how to distribute the weight enough to keep the house from crashing through.

"Because of the history of the house, I wanted to save it," said Kraemer. Without the ice rescue, he said, the house would be torn down.

Semple said he'd never tried such a project before. "We were able to get some insurance, and now we can try to make a go of it."

Manitou Island was developed in 1881 by the Manitou Implement Co. for summer cottages and included water and sewer service. The house was built a few years later for the island's caretaker, Casper Bloom, who lived in it for nearly 40 years while going about his job of looking out for the island's other homes during the winter, working as a guard on the bridge and other duties. The home was remodeled in 1991 and the caretaker duties were discontinued about 2001. A family had rented the home until moving out last fall.

As the tow cable quivered, the house inched off the island on its journey over the channel to Matoska Park. It made landfall about 25 minutes later as dozens of onlookers stared, snapped photographs and joked about what it takes to bring a Minnesotan outside on a bone-chilling day.

"It was pretty cool," said Sara Hanson, on the scene in her role as executive director of the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society. "It's the first time I've seen anything come across the ice of this magnitude."

Hanson detected "some good-sized cracks" when she walked onto the ice after the move. And Kraemer, in assessing his accomplishment, couldn't help but smile and crack a few jokes. "What's the worst-case scenario? It goes down," he said.

The three-bedroom, two-bathroom house had been straddling two lots and was moved to make way for new housing, Semple said. From the park's parking lot, the house will be moved this weekend to a neighborhood a few blocks away. Kraemer said he plans to sell it.

Denice Semple said the company has no plans to move other houses from the island.

Not the first time

 Wednesday's big move wasn't the first on the big lake.

Bystanders said they had heard of a house being skated across the lake's ice in the 1940s.

And about 135 years ago to the south of where Wednesday's  move occurred, a church was slid across a frozen expanse of White Bear Lake.

Church historical records for St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church say that the house of worship was hoisted off its foundation at White Bear Avenue N. and South Shore Boulevard, then pulled across the lake to First Street and Clark Avenue.

That church building was demolished in 1925 and replaced, and the congregation remains at that same location.

Kevin Giles • 612-673-4432 Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482