Dawn broke on Thursday September 14 with a text message and the photo below from our GC, Ryan Crowell: The Irons Have Arrived.

“The Irons” is shorthand for steel I-beams that will be threaded under the house  – six from front to back and four lengthwise. Once in place, the beams will be used to lift the house, relieving the sills of the weight of the building, approximately 90 tons. This week, Jeff Black and his crew from Fox & Sons are digging out dirt, sand, and whatever debris is still under the house to make room for the wood cribbing on which each I-beam rests. 

In the process, workers exposed the original sill and discovered Roman Numerals marking where each cross beam was to be nailed. (These could have been marked by Col. Sam Nevers in 1805!)

While Fox & Sons is busy threading the I-beams under the house, Rob Drew and his crew are completing construction of a road on which the house will travel to its new location. 

To build the road, first they bulldozed off the topsoil, then lay down geo-textile fabric to keep water from seeping upwards, and covered the fabric with many dump trucks full of aggregate and sand. 

This temporary road will also serve as a path to the construction site for large trucks and machinery. But once the house is moved and renovated, and the addition built, it will be deconstructed and the material used to extend the current driveway past the carriage house to the new house site. The field will be “healed” and returned to it’s former bucolic condition.