City is backing efforts to save Sears kit house
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

The City of Port Aransas has gotten behind an effort to save a building described as "the crown jewel of Port Aransas historical buildings."

Councilman Rick Pratt, at the Thursday, Nov. 16, council meeting, asked fellow council members to approve in principle the attempt to save the building commonly known as the "Sears house" at Oleander and Roberts streets.

"We need to get it off the site where it sits, or it will be destroyed," Pratt told the council.

Pratt's idea is to move the home to the property where the Port Aransas Computer Center is now, at 410 N. Alister St. The building on that land is the former combination city police station, constable's office and fire station.

"First, it would be a grand improvement visually," Pratt said. "Second, it would centralize our efforts to preserve and enhance our Old Town and make it into a commercially viable area.

"By locating (the Sears house) next door to the old Community Center, we have the makings of a really wonderful civic plaza," he said.

However, the council refused to discuss backing the effort to save the historic building without guarantees that it would not affect the Computer Center's operations.

"We really need to include in the motion (before the council) that this is subject to relocating the Computer Center in an appropriate manner," said Councilman Mike Hall. Pratt agreed.

Pratt's motion before the council, which was finally approved unanimously, was to place the house on that property "after all arrangements have been made."

That means another home would have to be found for the Computer Center before the house could be placed on the property. In turn, because of the impending sale of the home, the house would have to be put at a temporary location until the more permanent site can be prepared.

"We have someone who knows about site preparation looking at the property," Pratt said.

The house was brought to Port Aransas on a barge in 1910 in the form of a kit sold by the Sears, Roebuck Company by catalog. Pratt said the home survived the 1919 hurricane and served as a temporary Coast Guard station because the existing station was destroyed in the storm. It was moved to its present location by putting rollers under the house and pulling it through town.

The house is also known as the "Neblett house" because Municipal Court judge Duncan Neblett and former Mayor Georgia Neblett lived there for 20 years. The couple sold

the house last year; the property is in the process of being resold to a developer who wants to put town houses on the property.

One purpose of Saturday's Old Town Festival, sponsored by the Port Aransas Preservation and Historical Association (PAPAHA), is to raise money to buy, move and restore the home for use as a historical office, museum and tour headquarters.

The city leases the property on Alister Street from Nueces County. That lease runs through 2015, but City Manager Michael Kovacs said Thursday that the county will renew the lease based on what the city intends to do with the property.

Council member Beverly Charles, herself a board member of PAPAHA, was absent from the meeting.