FAIRHOPE — After months of fundraising, the historic Tolstoy Park house is getting a new home.

Sonny Brewer, local author and co-chairman of the Tolstoy Park Committee seeking to relocate the historic "Hermit Hut," announced during the Fairhope City Council meeting on Monday that the committee has reached its fundraising goal to move the structure.

The campaign, which began earlier this year, was seeking to raise $369,000 to relocate the structure to Flying Creek Nature Preserve, which opened this summer. The fundraising includes a matching donation of $184,500 from the Fairhope Single Tax Corporation and an anonymous donation from "the Friend" amounting to $100,000.

Brewer revealed to council that the committee received another anonymous donation worth $50,000, officially reaching their goal of $369,000.

Built by Henry Stuart, an Englishman who emigrated to the United States as a child, he welcomed over 1,300 visitors during his time living in his "Hermit Hut." The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. It currently sits in an office building parking lot located just along US-98 East in Fairhope.

Brewer is the author of the 2005 novel "The Poet of Tolstoy Park," which is about Tolstoy Park and its creator. He said more than 100 local citizens donated to the campaign while also thanking Fairhope Mayor Sherry Sullivan and the city council for their support in he and the committee's efforts.

"After surviving open heart surgery in 2022, a year after we kicked off the project, and a major heart attack four months ago, I began to feel I was still here so I would get to see this happen," Brewer told the council, "so from the bottom of my tattered and shaky heart, and on behalf of the Tolstoy Park Committee members Dick Scott and Savan Wilson, and for the sake of every dollar generously given by all the good people on our list of donors, and speaking for the thousands of souls, literally, who annually visit Tolstoy Park, I express my deepest gratitude."