The house is on site and awaits placement onto the new foundation.

Click photo to enlarge.

The house, formerly owned by The Common School, was moved two miles to the south in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday morning.  The South Pleasant Street property will be made into a parking area for the school, while the ranch-style house will become a raised ranch at its new location. 

Deborah Verdery of Turners Falls is the house’s new owner and future occupant.  She said that coordinating the move required “a lot of behind-the-scenes work,” to obtain permits and arrange for the various utility lines to be moved, allowing the house to pass.  Verdery praised the cooperation of all those who made it possible, including the Town of Amherst, the Fire Department, the Police Department, the Conservation Commission, Comcast, Verizon, Western Mass Electric Company and the Common School.

“I hope I don’t leave anyone out,” she said, noting that it was the combined efforts of many entities that made this work.

Jeff Bruscoe of West Hatfield’s Bruscoe Construction made the foundation for the house on Potwine Lane.  He said that creating it was very different than doing one for new construction.  All elements had to align perfectly in order for the house to be physically moved on to it and to fit correctly.

“Because this is for an existing building, everything had to be extremely precise,” he said.  This was Bruscoe’s first experience with a relocated structure.

The house isn’t sitting on the new foundation yet.  It is hooked up to the back of a truck on the Potwine lot, and according to Bruscoe, in the next couple of days it will be rolled over the foundation on steel rails to within six inches of the foundation’s top.  The concrete will continue to “cure,” (a chemical process of the water and cement combining for maximum strength and durability) and a top plate of pressure-treated wood will be attached, to which the house will be fastened.

Bruscoe said that in order to move the house on to its new base, the foundation required “beam pockets” or openings for the rails on which the house now sits.  Once the house is in position and the rails are removed, those pockets will become windows, so their exact location required coordination between Bruscoe and Payne Building Movers, the New Hampshire firm handling the move.

While Bruscoe worked to disassemble the stagings used to create the foundation, and to finish prepping that area, a Verizon crew in bucket trucks was working at the front of the property, restoring the utility lines.  Tom, who declined to give his last name, said that he’d been working “since the early morning” to create loops of excess wire that allowed the lines to be dropped to the ground and covered with boards so the truck bearing the house could drive over them.  They were bringing those wires back up at lunch time.  At many locations between the South Pleasant and Potwine sites, crews from different utility companies could be seen doing similar work. 

The utility lines and the stop lights are the complicating factors.  According to Verdery,  the house mover told her that considering the size of the house and the short distance between sites, the move could have been done in 20 minutes, but all the line work takes time.  All in all, it took nearly five hours to get the house from its original location to the new one.

Verdery declined to specify the cost of the move, saying she was uncertain because “I’m still writing checks.”  She expects it to be a few months yet until the house will be in move-in condition. 

She described being on Potwine Lane, and watching as the house turned the corner toward its new home.  The sun still wasn’t up yet, and the movers had strung Christmas lights around the perimeter of the house to help mark its extremities for the mostly pre-dawn move. 

“It was all lit up, and seeing it come around the corner was very dramatic,” Verdery said.  “It’s a beautiful house, and it will be again.”

Verizon workers restore the utility lines at the front of the Potwine property.  The raw edges seen on the house are where a garage had been attached at the previous location.  The garage did not get moved.

Click photo to enlarge.

The gray foundation for the new garage is on the left; the white foundation for the house is on the right. It is constructed of insulated concrete forms that Jeff Bruscoe said provide excellent insulation and soundproofing.

Click photo to enlarge.

Jeff Bruscoe displays one of the forms, which get stacked like blocks and filled with concrete and reinforcing steel bar. Unlike standard concrete forms, they remain part of the structure, providing good insulating properties. The exterior surface below grade will be covered with a waterproof membrane, while above grade, a synthetic stucco will be applied. On the inside, it can be walled over.

Click photo to enlarge.

This shows where the house meets the various steel beams, rails, clamps and hydraulic dollies that enabled the move.

Click photo to enlarge.

Before the move, on South Pleasant Street.

Click photo to enlarge.

After the move, on South Pleasant Street.

Click photo to enlarge.