I am often asked how I got into this. In this day of "new is better", many people don't even realize moving a house is possible. The truth is, our forefathers did this often.
As to how I learned about it, when I first moved to town, I rented a floor of a neat 1902 Shingle Style house on a busy commercial street. It was actually very quiet on nights and weekends. Three lots down, sandwiched between a high-rise elderly complex and a Pronto Printer was an 1885 house, this one with a large "For Sale" banner hanging from the upper story. The house had no garage and no yard to speak of. Figuring it couldn't be worth much, I called the number. The man who owned it actually lived up the street in another turn of the century house he had restored.
Because it was prime commercial property, he wanted almost $400K for the parcel. But he quickly stressed that anyone who wanted the house could have it - if they got it off the property. He felt the house, which needed work, would only be restored if doctors or lawyers bought the property. Otherwise he feared it would be razed.
Moving a house was news to me but what a gorgeous house. I called the Historical Society to find they had already moved a few houses in town and were currently looking at an old tavern being threatened by road expansion. While they knew about the plight of this house, they just did not have the funds to pursue dismantling and storing it (which is what they ended up doing with the tavern). I do believe they did what they could do to prevent the demolition but ultimately it came down.
Twice one summer as I drove by, I would see the sellers father mowing the lawn and the chain across the front stairs removed. I asked him if I could take a look inside and he said sure, while warning me to be careful of the hole in the floor in the front of the attic (which really wasn't more than a couple of missing floorboards).
All the houses of this style that I knew of on the street fell under one of the following categories:
Multi-family (usually 3 in a 6-6-5 format)
A business
A business on the lower floors with living quarters on the upper
Our town paper lived in one of these, complete with tower. I went in there a couple of times and it was all I could do not to run up
and peek at the rest of the place.
I fully expected this house to be a 3-family or maybe a 2-family with an attic. Imagine my delight when I opened the front door to see a full staircase running side to side in front of me. I flew up the stairs to find I was not seeing things, it had never been converted!
Once I got my breath back I went back downstairs to take a closer look. The parlor had a canvas ceiling and there were a number of pocket doors. There was a back staircase in addition to the main stairs that had stunned me. The second floor did have what appeared to have been a second kitchen at some point, minus any fixtures, sink or appliances. There was a later-added screened in porch off this old kitchen. I had visions of a renovated porch and breakfast on a beautiful spring day.
There was one room I really wanted to see. From the street, I could see an open door along a wall on the 2nd floor, but it was an upper door, not a full door. When I made my way over there, I found a bedroom which had a built-in spanning the entire wall. That was the source of the odd door - it was an upper cabinet. Along the bottom were a couple of sloping boards with narrow strips of wood along the back. It took awhile to figure out (and I think someone helped me on this) - they were for shoes and the strips of wood were to hold them in by their heels. Since I hadn't been on my own for long and didn't have much furniture, this would have to be my bedroom. I had never seen anything quite like it.
The third floor was a special treat to someone like myself who loves to have nooks and crannies to store things in. I believe only the back stairs went up here. In front of me stretched a hall from the back of the house, ending in a room facing the commercial street. There were 4 other rooms up here and a small bathroom.
The room I fell completely in love with was quite small. It was small because the entire room was been outfitted with cabinets and bookshelves. A place to store extra books neatly out of the way. I also remember on either side of the door, built into the shelves, was thick, wavy, decorative glass.
I later found the third floor had been converted into apartments in the 1940's. That may explain the kitchen on the second floor. I think I counted five bathrooms in the house.
Being young and foolish, I never brought a camera with my although photography is a hobby of mine. I guess I thought it would be there forever! :(
I moved to the other end of town a few years later. In the mid-1990's, I stopped by the camera store and was horrified to see the house was gone, and recently too. Not long after a small one story business office was built. I called the Historical Society, hopeful that they had been able to salvage something but they had not succeeded. Another beautiful piece of history gone forever.
While I was unable to do anything to help this house, my goal with this site is to match threatened homes to those who would like to take care of them.
Pass the word........