Developer says vandalism causes home to be unmovable

A Whitefish developer says vandalism to a historic home on Lupfer Avenue will force the home to be demolished rather than moved to another location.

Mark Panissidi told City Council Monday night that he had planned to move the house at the corner of Lupfer Avenue and Second Street with the intention of donating it to a nonprofit.

“We were getting ready to move the home and sometime in the last three to four weeks someone went in there and cut the floor joists,” he said. “We tried to look at putting new joists in so it could be moved, but it’s not feasible.”

Panissidi said he reported the incident to the Whitefish Police Department, but it’s now unsafe to move the building. Some of the lumber and windows will be salvaged, he noted, but the plan is to demolish the building this week, he noted.

Del Mar Pacific Group, headed up by Panissidi, received approval in June to construct a mixed-use building containing residential and commercial units on the site.

The project drew criticism from neighbors who said the new building wouldn’t fit in with the neighborhood and also those who didn’t want to see the historic home lost.

The house was originally the home of Jemima Duncan and J.A. Samson, who constructed the brick Duncan Samson building in 1910 that is located across the street.

Panissidi said from the beginning that the intention was to preserve the home by moving it to a new location.

“Now the outer walls would sheer out, it would collapse if it was moved,” he told Council. “We tried to move the house and save it, but it’s beyond that.”