FERNAN LAKE VILLAGE — Tuesday marked the end of an era for Amy Pollard Bartoo and her family. 

Two years after saying their goodbyes to their childhood home, the demolition process for the house began. 

The Pollards originally bought the house in 1967, and Bartoo and her brothers sold the property in 2023 after their mother passed away in 2021. 

Press clippings show the home was originally located in downtown Coeur d’Alene at Sixth Street and Lakeside Avenue, but it was moved in 1955 to make way for a Sunday school for First Presbyterian Church. 

Bartoo said it was colloquially known as “the Lady of The Lake” and has served as both an artistic muse for those illustrating local landscapes as well as a backdrop to sports like ice fishing, ice skating and hockey on the lake throughout the winters in the '70s and '80s.    

The loss of the house from the Fernan Lake shoreline was "breaking my heart,” Bartoo said. 

“I have wanted to keep this house ever since I was a little girl. I knew then that it wasn’t just any house, but it was a very unique and special place,” Bartoo wrote in a social media post commemorating the history of the home.

Each of the Pollard children were married within the acre of property, and Bartoo said her mother spent every summer day on her hands and knees making the yard a showpiece to several garden tours.   

“My mother lived there until she was 94,” Bartoo said. 

Bartoo tried to figure out a way to keep it in the family while fairly divvying up the assets among siblings.  

“All the while I have played the lottery in hopes of winning the big one so that I could keep it and then after it sold, buy it back. It just wasn’t in the cards,” Bartoo wrote. 

Last year, Walter Burns with the Coeur d’Alene Historic Preservation Commission began looking into ways to document Coeur d'Alene history within the city limits before properties are demolished. 

Rather than as a deterrent to building, the review process was explored as a means to capture area history before making way for new structures.

    The house the Pollard family purchased in 1967 in Fernan Lake Village began the demolition process Tuesday.
  

    A Press clipping for the house that moved from Sixth Street and Lakeside Avenue during its move in 1955 to Hazelwood Drive in Fernan Lake Village.