300-ton Buchanan Mansion makes five-mile move

The Buchanan Mansion, a 125-year-old brick house near Tipton that weighs more than 300 tons, started rolling down the road Monday morning, Aug. 10, 2009. The structure, being moved by Jeremy Patterson House Moving, averaged half a mile per hour. (Chris Mackler/The Gazette)

The moment of truth came at 6 Monday night when the 300-ton brick mansion made a right-angled uphill turn off Cedar County Road X30 onto the muddy Green Road.

Would the behemoth Buchanan Mansion, a Cedar County landmark for 125 years, remain upright or slide into the ditch?

Before more than 100 curious onlookers, the 20 crew members of Jeremy Patterson House Moving scrambled beneath the mansion for an hour, adjusting chains, sliding steel plates and wedges beneath some of the 140 tires holding up the house, and moved it forward inch by inch until it was finally off the road safely.

“This has never been done before,” said Jeremy Patterson, owner of the Washington, Iowa-based moving company that accomplished the feat.

“Heavier buildings have been moved for shorter distances, but no one has ever tried to move an old 300-ton brick mansion more than five miles,” he said.

Patterson, who was wearing a heart monitor after the recent blockage of one of his carotid arteries, delegated steering the 400-ton self-propelled rig — the beams, dollies, diesel engines and other moving equipment weighed more than 100 tons — to Jamen Buckingham of Bernville, Pa.

Walking backward in front of the house, Buckingham steered it with a remote-controlled joystick, making constant corrections to keep the 36-foot-wide rig on course. He also controlled the power to the six dollies with driving wheels that impelled the rig forward.
Alliant Energy crews took down 16 sets of utility lines to enable the rig’s passage.

The move could not have taken place had there been any bridges along the route, Patterson said.

Linda Weaver of Tipton, who with her husband, Randy, intends to make the mansion the center of their startup winery, said a weeklong weather delay made the move more stressful than it otherwise might have been.

Asked the cost of the move, she gave the same answer Patterson gave to The Learning Channel, which filmed the spectacle for broadcast later this year: “Two tractors, a goat and a little red hen.”

Teri Jo Griebat, who lived in the mansion for a decade until earlier this year, said the 16-room mansion was built in 1883 by Alexander Buchanan. Members of her family lived in it since her grandfather Clarence Miller bought it in 1938, she said.

Griebat said a $2,300 utility bill in January convinced her that new accommodations were in order. She said she is delighted it will be preserved in its new location on Green Road by the Weavers.

Later this week, the house will be settled into place atop wooden cribs, and its new foundation will be built beneath it, Linda Weaver said. It will likely be two years before the Weavers move into the mansion and start making wine there, she said.

– Orlan Love, The Gazette