linda040899
09-26-2006, 09:12 PM
I posted the article, as I don't know how long the link will be active. This is quite a story and an amazing engineering feat!!! Footage is about 7,000 sq. ft.
House Sails To New Home
Posted September 26, 2006 at 12:24 PM
http://media.tbo.com/photos/trib/2006/sep/0926barge2.jpg
Spectators watch as the house gets loaded onto a barge in Palmetto on Monday. JIM REED/Tribune photo
Video: House Being Moved (http://www.tbo.com/video/xml/MGB6SJYHKSE.html) | Photo Gallery (http://snap.tbo.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=303685) | Eagle 8 Video: House On Barge (http://www.tbo.com/video/xml/MGBI8L9JKSE.html)
By SUSAN M. GREEN
The Tampa Tribune
PALMETTO - It took about half a day Monday to load a 1910 Queen Anne house onto a barge and wait for suitable tides to send it across Tampa Bay to Ruskin.
By the end of the day, after neighbors and fans wished the stately old house bon voyage, it was launched into the Bay, headed for its new home on the Little Manatee River 25 miles to the north.
City leaders said the house had to go to make room for a complex of condominiums, offices and shops, part of a waterfront revitalization plan. Its home for the last century was by the Manatee River, built there for Asa Lamb, son of Palmetto founder Samuel Lamb. Its new owner plans to restore the house and make it part of a ministry he runs with his wife.
Overnight, the house sat on the barge at the mouth of the Little Manatee River. This morning, it set out for the bay’s open waters.
On the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier, about 150 people braved sun and then driving rain late this morning to watch the house go under the bridge, many with binoculars and cameras. Some said they had been tracking the house’s move for days, exchanging information about the changing schedule with people they met as they watched it prepared for the trip.
Janice Hutchings of Palmetto and Norma Dallas of Sun City Center met Monday as they watched the house moved onto the barge. They got up early this morning to watch it leave Emerson Point in Manatee County, then drove over to watch it go under the Skyway.
“I’ve been driving by this house for so long, I’m very happy it’s being preserved,” Hutchings said.
Terry Stewart, the home’s previous owner, and a handful of employees of the former group home he operated at the house, were among those on the Sunshine Skyway to bid it farewell.
Veteran mover Kim Brownie rolled the 220-ton house on hydraulically steered wheels from the sandy lot it occupied for almost a century onto the barge in less than an hour. For the crowds who watched from atop a nearby condominium building or brought folding chairs, the boarding looked easy.
George Corbett, who with his wife Nancy will restore the house once it lands on his Ruskin lot, noted that it has been almost a year since he proposed the move to state and local officials in Hillsborough and Manatee counties.
He negotiated with two owners to get the house. The Corbetts said they plan to seek historic landmark protection from Hillsborough officials after the house settles.
The couple own a campground retreat for missionaries, Canaan Land, in North Carolina. The Corbetts restored a number of buildings at that site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Many who turned out Monday said they were sad to see the house leave but happy it would not meet the wrecking ball.
House Sails To New Home
Posted September 26, 2006 at 12:24 PM
http://media.tbo.com/photos/trib/2006/sep/0926barge2.jpg
Spectators watch as the house gets loaded onto a barge in Palmetto on Monday. JIM REED/Tribune photo
Video: House Being Moved (http://www.tbo.com/video/xml/MGB6SJYHKSE.html) | Photo Gallery (http://snap.tbo.com/pages/gallery.php?gallery=303685) | Eagle 8 Video: House On Barge (http://www.tbo.com/video/xml/MGBI8L9JKSE.html)
By SUSAN M. GREEN
The Tampa Tribune
PALMETTO - It took about half a day Monday to load a 1910 Queen Anne house onto a barge and wait for suitable tides to send it across Tampa Bay to Ruskin.
By the end of the day, after neighbors and fans wished the stately old house bon voyage, it was launched into the Bay, headed for its new home on the Little Manatee River 25 miles to the north.
City leaders said the house had to go to make room for a complex of condominiums, offices and shops, part of a waterfront revitalization plan. Its home for the last century was by the Manatee River, built there for Asa Lamb, son of Palmetto founder Samuel Lamb. Its new owner plans to restore the house and make it part of a ministry he runs with his wife.
Overnight, the house sat on the barge at the mouth of the Little Manatee River. This morning, it set out for the bay’s open waters.
On the Sunshine Skyway fishing pier, about 150 people braved sun and then driving rain late this morning to watch the house go under the bridge, many with binoculars and cameras. Some said they had been tracking the house’s move for days, exchanging information about the changing schedule with people they met as they watched it prepared for the trip.
Janice Hutchings of Palmetto and Norma Dallas of Sun City Center met Monday as they watched the house moved onto the barge. They got up early this morning to watch it leave Emerson Point in Manatee County, then drove over to watch it go under the Skyway.
“I’ve been driving by this house for so long, I’m very happy it’s being preserved,” Hutchings said.
Terry Stewart, the home’s previous owner, and a handful of employees of the former group home he operated at the house, were among those on the Sunshine Skyway to bid it farewell.
Veteran mover Kim Brownie rolled the 220-ton house on hydraulically steered wheels from the sandy lot it occupied for almost a century onto the barge in less than an hour. For the crowds who watched from atop a nearby condominium building or brought folding chairs, the boarding looked easy.
George Corbett, who with his wife Nancy will restore the house once it lands on his Ruskin lot, noted that it has been almost a year since he proposed the move to state and local officials in Hillsborough and Manatee counties.
He negotiated with two owners to get the house. The Corbetts said they plan to seek historic landmark protection from Hillsborough officials after the house settles.
The couple own a campground retreat for missionaries, Canaan Land, in North Carolina. The Corbetts restored a number of buildings at that site, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Many who turned out Monday said they were sad to see the house leave but happy it would not meet the wrecking ball.