Rebuilding a foundation for a house is usually not a terribly big deal—a company jacks up the house, maybe moves it over a bit, builds the new foundation, and plops the old sticks-and-bricks back on top.
But when the house is a 460,000-pound concrete block structure assembled in a rare interlocking fashion that makes it extremely unstable when hoisted into the air—such a project is not so simple.
Thus was the case in Sagaponack when the new owners of an early 20th century two-story concrete abode on Crestview Lane were looking to put on some modern extensions to their house. A new foundation was needed, but the instability of the house made the move a complicated task.
“It was very tedious,” said Stan Kazel, owner of Dawn House Movers, the Yaphank company that was brought in to do the move. “One little jolt and this thing would collapse. But it had to be saved or they couldn’t put the additions on.”
To brace the concrete blocks, Mr. Kazel’s crews constructed a 40-ton steel collar that completely surrounded the house to hold the structure square for the 100-foot move and installed hundreds of support beams inside to brace the masonry. The house was then slowly lifted off the foundation and moved across the property.
Preparing the structure took more than a month. The move itself took about three hours.
“It went very well,” Mr. Kazel said, adding that his company will need to tempt fate by moving the structure back onto the foundation soon. “We get to do it all over again in a couple of months.”
