The lake is an access hatch, yes, and removable. My original concept for this end of the layout was multiple hatch covers that would create different scenes/things to built, since with completion of this end of the layout I have run out of new space on which to build.
I have three hatch covers:
- the lake alone: I've posted photos before of it. It makes for a beautiful, quiet scene, quite pretty I think.
- a flat green field of grass that can be a soccer field or a car concours event, etc. Posted pictures of a concours sometime back, too.
- my "secret rocket base" which of course is anything but secret, with the missle that comes out of the silo, and radars that swivel and turn, etc. I work on this from time to time. Lots of fun in a 1950s, seven-year old kid kind of way.
So, yes, the brewery is removable: the whole semi-circular "pallet"(chunk of land it sits on) comes off as one piece and I store it under the layout.
Bottom, line: I love making nice buildings and having them and all the stuff that goes with them (parked cars, trucks at loading ramps, etc.) on the layout but I have run out of room. So this brewery is the first of several that will form a small mountain town, each built on a pallet that I can put down over the mountain lake, or the grass-covered hatch cover for that matter, and together making a small town that will come and go on my layout at times, as I choose. For obvious reasons I think I have to call this small mountain community Brigadoon.