Here’s yet another story. The house looks pretty amazing.
Cheryl Adkins is moving her dream home 550 miles this weekend from Zeeland to North Carolina and, after enjoying her new digs for just a couple of days, will walk away with the knowledge that it will likely be demolished.
Or even eaten.
She’s not a victim of the unraveling housing market or termites, though. Her abode is a gingerbread house, destined for a sweet gig that pits bakers extraordinaire against one another at the 17th annual National Gingerbread House Competition & Display.
But for Adkins, successfully delivering her project to the site of the contest — the fabled Grove Park Inn & Spa in Asheville, N.C. — will be a chore in itself.
“I’m nervous,” says Cheryl’s brother, Brian Brookman, of Alto, who will pilot his Rav4 with his wife, Marianne, riding shotgun and Cheryl and her dream home in back.
“Cheryl did most the work, and now it’s up to me to drive very carefully for two days,” says Brian.
Yum: Like everything else on the house, this whimsical bird is edible.
“I just hope I don’t hit a pothole and demolish it.”Unfortunately, that’s entirely possible, given that Cheryl’s creation is held together with nothing more substantive than sugar and spice, which in this case is not exactly nice.
But it’s a requirement: All entries must be entirely edible. That means not a single element to serve as framework or prop.
“It’s sturdy,” Cheryl maintains of her sugary submission, “but with bumps and vibrations along the way, you never know what could fall off.”
Cheryl’s gingerbread house is not your typical boxy Victorian. It’s a tree whose branches support no less than six hand-crafted birdhouses, each different from one another. The blue birdhouse alone weighs nearly three pounds, contributing to the potential problems associated with transporting it.
Hiding within the trunk is a painstakingly decorated Christmas tree, and there are other touches that distinguish the work from conventional gingerbread houses, including birds peeking from entry holes, leaves and acorns of chocolate and the remnants of a melted snowman.
And, Cheryl relied on not one piece of store-bought candy to erect her dwelling. “We even made the pastillage,” she says of the sugar-based dough used to make edible creations.
She built her concoction inside a private dining facility near downtown Zeeland. The receptionist there, Kelly Dalman, termed the gingerbread house “absolutely fantastic.”
“I’ve been fortunate enough to watch as it progressed,” she said. “Cheryl is amazing.”