Mobile Mansion

What happens when the owners don't want the huge house, but the neighbors do? A moving Hamptons tale.

BY JENNIFER SMITH
STAFF WRITER

January 29, 2005

How do you pick up and move a 7,500-square-foot shingled mansion -- whose two chimneys alone weigh 50 tons each -- to a new address half a mile away?

Very carefully.

Guy J. Davis crunched through the snow on swank Further Lane in East Hampton, checking hydraulic hoses and taking measurements before the house in question -- then jacked up 9 feet high on a lattice of steel girders -- began the next-to-last leg of its journey early Thursday morning.

A fourth-generation house mover, Davis relocates about 80 homes and buildings a year, mostly pulling them back from eroding shorelines. At 450 tons, this L-shaped five-bedroom house is "one of the biggest houses ever moved on Long Island," Davis said. "The whole job is a challenge."

It's not every day you move a mansion. But this transfer involved the tale of two tastes.

One couple wanted to replace the house on their land with a more modern structure. But instead of consigning the house to the wrecking ball, they began looking for a buyer who would literally take it off their hands.

Eventually, another couple bought adjacent land on Further Lane planning to build a cottage-style mansion much like the unwanted one. When they heard about their neighbors' plan, they took a tour and fell in love.

"There were so many elements of the house that we would have incorporated if we were going to build anyway," said the woman who bought the house, who asked not to be named. "It met all our specifications, right down to the fixtures."

To build that house would cost about $3.5 million, said architect James McMullan, a partner with Fleetwood, Lenahan and McMullan of East Hampton, which built the home more than 10 years ago. The firm is known for traditional shingled-style houses that list from $1.5 million up to a reported $50 million for one Wainscott residence.

"It was cheaper than $3.5 million to buy and haul," said Bud Webb, whose East Hampton company, Ronald Webb Builder and Contractor, supervised the move. While he would not specify how much the move cost, "it was definitely worth it financially," Webb said.

Preparation began last fall, when Davis and his crew jacked the house up from its original site and laid 80 tons of steel in a grid underneath. Twelve eight-wheeled dollies hold up the house on 50-ton hydraulic rams that evenly distribute its weight as it travels over uneven ground.

"Basically the whole house floats on oil, so you don't have any cracking or twisting," said Davis, who owns Davis Construction House and Building Movers in Westhampton Beach.

The work is slow and requires maddening precision, especially in a stiff wind that whips snow in your face.

"This is like going to war," said Kim Brownie, a tanned, bearded house mover from Florida and former Long Islander whose grandfather used to compete with Davis' family for business out on the East End. No slouch at the moving business -- his company once moved an 11,500-ton house by barge 110 miles from Boca Raton to Fort Pierce, Fla. -- Brownie was already up this fall to lend his expertise. "I call them tours of duty," he said with a grin.

In December, Davis and his crew moved the house to the edge of the property, traveling a couple of hundred feet a day over steel plates laid down on graded soil. Thursday they moved it the last few hundred feet to rest above the new foundation, now topped by a steel deck to support the house's weight. In a few weeks, once the masonry work in the basement is completed, they will remove the decking and lower the house.

"Most people buy and tear down," McMullan said of the home's new owners. "It's very rare to see someone go to that extent to save a house."

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