Cambridge’s Winnie-the-Pooh House on Hurlbut Street facing the ax

Cambridge’s best-known Winnie-the-Pooh House will be demolished within the next few days as part of a city-mandated lead pipe replacement and repaving along Hurlbut Street in the city’s Neighborhood 9.

The house was born of the April Fool’s Day snowstorm of 1997, which wrecked a silver maple tree.

The late Harvard anthropologist and neighbor Irv Devore hollowed it out and sculptor Mitch Ryerson crafted it into the whimsical house known today (there’s still a smaller Pooh House outside of Harvard’s Science Center, though that, too, has seen better days).

Tom Meek, writing for Cambridge Day, has more on Ryerson’s original vision:

[T]he hollowed-out belly of the tree became a living room occupied by a plump Pooh Bear with a guest book hanging just inside to be signed by visitors—mostly children inspired by the chance to witness a physical incarnation of A.A. Milne’s long-cherished creation. The eight- to nine-foot structure was capped by a meticulously laid shingled roof and a weathervane with a faded sign below for “Mr. Sanders” near a small door and window leading to the root system, a reference to Milne’s previous Pooh house tenant.

At least it’s a demolition ending Pooh Bear’s run in Cambridge and not a rent hike.

• Winnie-the-Pooh tree marked for removal after 20 years delighting visitors to Hurlbut [Day]