Getting ready to roll; see its original state in “Read more,” with slide show of the deconstruction
January 22, 2010
by Christine Yeres
Brenda Kelly Kramer knew from the start that moving the little house, 22 feet wide, 22 feet high and 32 feet deep, would be a big job, but not quite this big, and this complicated, and this time-consuming. Since summer, when developer Steve Tavolacci phoned to tell her that the little house at the top of Taylor Road in Lawrence Farms East was free to be lifted from its moorings, her whole life has been all about getting the little house to her property on South Lane in Hillholme.
Tavolacci, of Tavo Development, LLC, had purchased the little two-story, three-bedroom house and its 1.5 acre lot in April 2009 from a family of four who used it for the last 15 years as a summer home. Although not a designated landmarked, the 1500 square foot cottage with its gambrel roof and dormers is still a piece of the town’s story, according to New Castle Town Historian Gray Williams,.
The little house was built nearly 100 years ago in what is now known as Lawrence Farms East, formerly Annandale Farms, the 600-acre estate of Moses Taylor V. The little house “was once occupied by Taylor’s coachman,” said Williams, and is “a modest but charming example of early Colonial Revival architecture, originally built about 1901.” In early December, Williams wrote a letter to the town urging Supervisor Barbara Gerrard to help speed approvals for the logistics of the move, and suggested future landmark status for the house in its new location. See Williams letter to Gerrard by clicking HERE.
A sentimental landmark from Kramer’s childhood
Kramer, a 42-year-old interior designer and mother of six boys ranging from 15 to twins under two, had passed the little house many times in her childhood, visiting her grandfather, who was manager of the Mt. Kisco Country Club. Shortly after Tavolacci purchased the little house, the former owners hosted a tag sale in the little house they were abandoning. Kramer went to the tag sale and came away with the information that Tavolacci had procured both a building permit for a new house and a demolition permit for the little house. She took his contact information too.
Kramer with three of her six sons
When she called Tavolacci, he explained that because the town’s zoning regulations permitted only a one-family house on the lot, he had struck a deal with the town allowing him to keep the little house where it was until a certificate of occupancy was obtained for any newly constructed house. He told her that he too was interested in preserving it, and meant to offer it to the future buyer of the house to make over into a guesthouse or pool house. She told him that she loved the place, and asked him to keep her in mind in case the house should be free someday.
Tavolacci built a 5500 square foot house north of the little house on the corner of the lot, and found a buyer. But the prospective buyer wasn’t interested in the little house, making its removal a condition of the contract. “So I called Brenda right away,” said Tavolacci. “I’m a local builder, I live in town. I wanted to see a piece of the town’s history stay and not be torn down.”
So he told Kramer she could have the little house, gratis, but that she would have to move it. Kramer jumped at the offer. Tavolacci assisted with some excavation around the foundation and steered her toward trusted contractors. As the foundation was gradually reduced, four steel beams were slid under the first floor of the house. It sat there for weeks as Kramer arranged the move while juggling the rest of her life as well.
Plan A, Plan B or Plan C?
Kramer has been orchestrating the move since then. Plan A was to move the house by removing its second floor and cutting the first floor down its center. That approach would make less of a wide load along the route to her house in Hillholme, down Route 117 and out King Street just past Grafflin Elementary School.
A poured concrete foundation waits there to receive the little house, which will be connected to the sun room of her 1930’s colonial. The second floor was moved first, in pieces, with gables intact, to Kramer’s yard, where they remain protected by a tarp. Likewise, a tarp protects the floorboards—or ceiling, now—of the remaining floor of the little house still on Taylor Road.
The next step was to cut the first floor in half. But when she heard from a contractor with experience moving little old houses that cutting the house in two could be traumatic, perhaps even fatal to the remaining floor, she reconsidered. So Plan B was born: keep the first floor of the little house intact and lift it up and out with a very large crane. Kramer rearranged for the move.
Then a week ago the project became entangled with the requirements of Cablevision, Verizon and Con Ed, all three of which had wires stretching along the front of the Taylor Road property. Each of the companies believed that moving the whole house on roadways would require a lot of very expensive lifting of their wires all along the route to Hillholme. Still, Kramer plead her case for saving the house to representatives of each of the three companies, and they agreed to move necessary wires at no charge.
Plan C: Go back to Plan A
With the wires no longer an issue, there remained one tall, narrow problem: at the curb, smack in the center of the Taylor Road front yard stood one of the maple trees that line Taylor Road on both sides making an canopy along it in summer. In order to slide the house out in one piece, that 18-inch-diameter tree would have to be cut down.
Many of the Taylor Road trees are in poor health, and on the north side of the street where the little house lived, many have been compromised by Con Ed’s tree trimming around its wires. But the one tree directly in front of the little house was a bit younger than its brothers, and not in such bad shape as the others. So although she had procured permission from the town to cut it down, when several neighbors protested the planned removal Kramer returned to her first plan, to cut the house in two.
Bracing for the move
This week, using plywood and two-by-fours, carpenters shored up the interior of the house with temporary walls throughout its inside, strengthening it for the cut down its middle. Next, the ceiling of the first floor, which is also the floor of the now missing second floor, was removed and transported, along with the house’s two front and back gambrels, on a very big flatbed to Kramer’s house on South Lane.
Using a hand-held reciprocating saw, workers cut a very fine line to separate the house into two nearly equal parts. Yesterday, the left side (viewed from the front yard) had been raised by about four feet by hydraulic jacks placed under its steel beams.
Today, that same half will be slid sideways (left, viewed from the front yard), out from over the basement of the house to the side yard. Wheels will be set under the ends of each of the steel beams, and the half-house will be rolled forward to the curb of Taylor Road. The second half will follow suit and line up behind it. Then perhaps on Monday the two halves, on their wheels, will be towed like narrow trailer houses, home to Kramer’s property, finally to nestle next to her house.
“I’m glad I did it,” said Taylor wearily, “although I’ve wished sometimes that I hadn’t undertaken it. But I know I’ll be happy when it’s over.” Photo Gallery.
See slide show below, or in
Before the move
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