Efforts to relocate Tolstoy Park and the famous "Hermit Hut" are underway through a local fundraising initiative.

The Tolstoy Park Committee, comprised of residents, has been seeking to raise $369,000 to move the structure from its current location in an office building parking lot to the Flying Creek Nature Preserve, a new park that may open later this year. The Fairhope Single Tax Corporation, which owns around 4,500 acres of land in and around the city, has pledged a matching donation of $184,500 contingent on the other half being raised through community fundraising. As of this writing, the Tolstoy Park Committee has raised over $204,000.

Sonny Brewer, author of the 2005 novel "The Poet of Tolstoy Park," about Tolstoy Park and its creator, Henry Stuart, serves as co-chairman of the committee. He held a presentation on April 24 at the Fairhope Public Library about the project, provided materials and answered questions.

"Henry will be glad to move out of the paved parking lot and back to paradise," Brewer says on the fundraiser's website. "Visitors will get to experience Henry's round house as evidence of a lifestyle that disappeared decades ago. But the spirit of one man's will to live still exists as a genuine keepsake in every one of those 80-pound blocks he stacked in a circle to make his walls."

Brewer expressed confidence in Wolfe Movers, a company from Pennsylvania proposed to move the structure, in the event they raise the necessary funds. He said he is impressed with what they have moved in the past, including large structures such as hotels, and that he thinks they are the right people for the job.

Henry Stuart was an Englishman who emigrated to the United States as a child. After initially living in Nampa, Idaho, he moved to Montrose after contracting an illness, with his doctors advising him to move to a warmer climate. While living in Montrose, he built the now famous "Round House" on a land he named Tolstoy Park. Despite his moniker as a hermit, he welcomed over 1,300 visitors to the Hermit Hut during his time living there, with one of his many guests including famed attorney Clarence Darrow, who visited six times. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Today, the Round House sits in an office building parking lot located just along US-98 East in Fairhope. The Hermit Hut was donated to the City of Fairhope, and city leaders have previously supported moving the structure pending the funds to do so.

Brewer has more presentations about Tolstoy Park planned. The next will be at the Fairhope Museum of History on May 31, followed by another at the Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship on June 22.

Visit www.tolstoypark.com to donate to the fundraiser and to learn more about the initiative.