13 WTHR - Indianapolis News |Dunes residents have last Thanksgiving in homes

Dunes residents have last Thanksgiving in homes

Beverly Shores - Dozens of people who live within the boundaries of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore celebrated their final Thanksgiving in their homes Thursday, months before the government is set to take possession of their properties.

The lakeshore will claim the houses overlooking Lake Michigan on Sept. 30, forcing many elderly residents to find new homes after 40 or more years in the same dwelling.

Eighty-five-year-old Doye Grimm, whose home in Portage is a half block into the park, said her home is her whole life. Her late husband built the house 63 years ago and they raised three children there.

"I'm a widow, and this home has all of my memories," she told The Times of Munster. "I just can't bear the thought of having to leave it at this point in my life. I'd like to stay until I die. It's very stressful. I don't know where I'm going to go. I can't afford to go anywhere."

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore Superintendent Costa Dillon said all the property owners sold their homes to the national park years ago and will have to move regardless of age. Thirty-eight people are losing their rights to 26 properties, he said.

"These people sold their houses to the U.S. ... It was done 25 years ago, and they've had time to prepare," Dillon said.

Although many of the residents commonly use the term "leaseback" to refer to the arrangement under which they continued to live in their homes after the federal lakeshore was created in the 1960s, "there's no such thing as a leaseback," Dillon said.

The National Park Service bought the properties with a provision in which the owners were allowed to remain in them for a specified length of time, he said.

Residents paid the park rent and all taxes, insurance, and maintenance while living in the homes.

But some residents said the federal government made decisions affecting their properties without consulting them.

Beverly Shores residents George and Ann Bagnall, both 81, said they had no idea their home would become part of the national lakeshore when they decided to build it in 1960.

"They said it would be an urban park and it was innovative and creative, and they wanted to work with the existing homeowners," George Bagnall said.

The original act brought to Congress by Illinois Sen. Paul Douglas in 1966 to establish the national park involved an innovative idea called the Cape Cod Plan, which allowed existing homeowners to live in the park they helped to create and call home.

The Cape Cod Plan remains intact at the Cape Cod National Seashore, where more than 600 homes exist within park boundaries. The Bagnalls said a provision in the legislation protecting homes in the Indiana lakeshore was dropped when the park expanded in 1976.

"The insidious thing about it is, if you talk to the park, they'll say we were willing sellers," George Bagnall said. "But if a person puts you in a corner and holds a gun to you and says, 'Your money or your life,' how is that a willing choice?"

Information from: The Times

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