Wealthy man pays almost £300k to have his entire house moved six streets away

A man in the United States has paid almost £300,000 to have his 19th-century house moved six streets away.

The owners of a historic San Francisco mansion had their home uprooted and rolled about half a mile to a new site in order to make way for a new apartment block.

Their house, valued at about $5 million (roughly £3.6 million) was moved at around 1mph from Franklin Street to Fulton Street, including a stretch down one of the California city's notoriously steep hills.

To make way for the unusually wide load, traffic signs were moved, some trees had branches sawn off and parking meters had to be removed from some streets.

About three-eighths of a mile of city streets were fully closed for the operation yesterday, February 21.

SF Planning’s deputy communications manager, Candace SooHoo stressed that "the City does not have a role in physically moving the house," but house-moving specialist Phil Joy told reporters he had to secure permits from more than 15 city agencies to enable the extraordinarily complicated project.

Homeowner Tim Brown shelled out some $400,000 (£285k) in fees and moving costs to relocate the historic house, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Tim, 70, said he had to spend quite a bit on "shoring up the house and making sure the front porch doesn't fall off".

Real estate broker Tim said his intent has always been to preserve the two historic buildings while providing new space to build new housing in the heart of the city.

He received official approval to go ahead with his plan in 2018, but getting everything organised since then – during a Covid-19 pandemic that at one point threatened to close down his removal company – has been a "logistical nightmare", he said.

The six-bedroom, three-bath home’s address has been 807 Franklin Street for the past 138 years.

From now on it will stand at 635 Fulton Street – and the old Bryant Mortuary that had been on that site has itself been shifted aside to make room for it on the 10,415-square-foot site.

The cost of moving the mortuary building several feet to make room for its new neighbour cost Tim about $120,000 (£86k).

This bizarre procedure is unusual, but not entirely unprecedented.

Unlike the more solid brick homes you might find on America’s East Coast, houses in San Francisco are more likely to be wooden structures that are comparatively lighter and more portable.

In 1900 the city had no fewer than 19 companies specialising in these 'whole house' moves. It's far less common nowadays and a large crowd – albeit socially distanced – gathered to watch the rare event.

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