NORWAY – Gov. John Baldacci has signed off on a piece of state land that will help in the relocation of the Gingerbread House slated for this summer.

“That took about six months but it has been done,” Andrea Burns of Downtown Norway told selectmen at their Thursday night meeting.

The signature was the last in a series of actions that the state Department of Transportation had to take before getting the governor’s signature.

The Gingerbread House on Main Main Street is owned by C’s Inc., a real estate holding company affiliated with Sun Media Group, publishers of the Sun Journal and Advertiser-Democrat. The owners agreed last year to delay demolition of the historic home if a grassroots organization of volunteers could figure a way to move the massive house to a small piece of land a little less than a tenth of a mile down Main Street at the western entrance to town.

The land needed included a .31 parcel of town property, land from the Department of of Transportation and C’s Company property.

The governor’s action, combined with a call Burns said she received from Ed Snook of C’s Inc., which indicated there should be no barriers to the move, means it could take place as soon as late August or early September, she said.

“He saw no reason why it can’t go through,” Burns said of the conversation. Issues between the two parties include the donation of a small amount of land and providing a shared driveway.

The local group staked the new site for the Gingerbread House in December.

Once the move is ready to happen, work will begin to deconstruct one of the chimneys, remove the porch, cut down a few trees abutting the house and other actions. Burns has said the gingerbread trim on the sagging and rotted porch will be saved for future reconstruction purposes.

Originally known as the Evans-Cummings House, the Gingerbread House, with its octagonal tower, has graced the entrance to Norway from the north since 1851. Its builder was Richard Evans, who was considered an important contractor who also built the Nash house on Pleasant Street and the passenger railroad station at South Paris. The 80-foot- by 20-foot building house is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Plans have been under development for the past several years to save the building, which is considered structurally sound by various organizations, including Norway Downtown, the Norway Historical Society, the Gingerbread Task Force and Steering Committee, the town of Norway, Norway Water Department, Maine Department of Transportation and others.

If the committee is successful, long-range plans will be determined but members have already agreed the building must be self supporting.

The Norway Landmarks Preservation Committee, which has been formed to legally accept donations, will do business as the Friends of the Gingerbread House. There is about $277,000 in the group’s coffers that will be used in the move and limited renovation of the building.

Burns said Thursday that the group has received a $9,000 donation, which along with another $1,000 already in the coffers, will match a recent Norway Savings Bank $10,000 matching donation.

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