ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Until now, time has worn gently on the old log cabin in east Anchorage.

Paul and LaNeva "Lee" Rees finished it in 1941, tacking an upturned horseshoe over the front door, and it's barely changed since: The curvy enamel range stands ready to percolate coffee. The stone hearth is only missing a bearskin rug. A harness rack still carries the names of sled dogs - Kobuk, Frosty, Taku - that were mushed to Anchorage when the city was a cluster of houses miles away.

But life on the two-acre lot will change fast this spring, following the pace of redevelopment sweeping the Fairview neighborhood.

Earlier this year, developer Darin Marin bought the land with its valuable view of the Chugach Mountains. He plans to break ground on a high-end 38-unit condominium complex when the weather warms.

"It may not be feasible to move (the cabin)," Marin said. "It's really sad. It's a nice cabin. … We'll do anything we can to help someone move it off the property."

Otherwise, it will be demolished, he said.

Marin's new complex will offer housing for Anchorage's growing crop of middle-age baby boomers looking to downsize into luxury units, he said. None of the units will have stairs. Parking will be underground, he said.

The Rees came to Alaska from California by ship, searching for adventure in the 1930s, according to a Rees history by writer Jean Flynn that is published on the Internet.

Paul took a job with the Alaska Railroad. Lee was a housewife and avid outdoorswoman. They moved from a house near the Delaney Park Strip to the property they called "Seven Acres" because they needed room for her sled dogs.

Lee's mushing hobby was rare for a woman in Anchorage in the 1940s. She developed her own dog breed from dogs mushed by Leonard Seppala, a hero of the Iditarod serum run. A fence still encircles the dog yard where 40 huskies once yipped and howled. One of Lee Rees' sleds is part of the collection at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, according to curators.

The cabin's story foreshadows how the area will change in coming years, from a rough-edged neighborhood of older homes and lower-end rentals to a place where more people live in larger, sometimes higher-end complexes, according to Tom Nelson, city planning director.

Like many little houses in the neighborhood, the old cabin is worth far less than the land it sits on, Nelson said. Land prices in the area have appreciated 10 percent to 20 percent annually in recent years, according Marty McGee, municipal assessor. Land across the city is harder to find, and more people want to live close to downtown, Nelson said.

"An older structure may be nice and charming, but for remodeling it may be problematic," he said. "If you have high land value, you have to put in a high-value structure. Typically, that's going to be more than a single-family structure."

For the neighbors, redevelopment is bittersweet. AnnaLee Smith, who's lived across the street from the cabin for 30 years, has watched the neighborhood change, the grid of little houses giving way to plywood-sided fourplexes and condos. The change at the Rees cabin is hardest to contemplate, especially when she thinks of Paul Rees.

"He wouldn't have wanted this," Smith said. "I don't feel good about it, but we've been through this before. What can you do? Tell me what to do to stop this and I'll do it."

After Lee Rees died in 1991, Smith kept an eye on Paul, who lived part of the year in the cabin until he died in 2003, just shy of his 100th birthday. His daughter, June Rees Vance, spread his ashes among his heirloom peonies.

Vance, 81, grew up in the cabin. She lives in Folsom, Calif., and Mesa, Ariz., now. She helped her father sell the property in 2001 to Joseph Fleming, a family friend. She said Fleming promised to keep it the same. Given the news about the cabin, she cried.

"My mother collected every stone to build that fireplace herself," she said. "It just grabs me in the throat and heart. I certainly hope that someone can come up with the solution to move it."

Fleming, reached in Phoenix, said his priorities changed after he bought the property.

"We got to the age where we wanted to be out of there in the wintertime," he said. "I tried to get the city to be interested in it as a historical thing, but they had no interest."

Paul and Lee Rees paid about $450 for seven acres of dairy-cattle grazing land in the late 1930s. Vance sold the last two acres and the cabin to Fleming for about $270,000, she said. The property is now valued about $350,000. Marin wouldn't comment on the exact sale price but said it was higher than the assessed value.

"Money talks, unfortunately," Marin said.