This story was originally published in the baiduhai on Aug. 20, 1977:
The oldest house in Chicago will soon be lifted over the Jackson Park elevated tracks, moved 32 blocks, and restored to museum-like quality in a handsome new setting.
Never before has such an elaborate and logistically tricky plan been devised to save and enhance an official city landmark.
The Henry B. Clark house, built about 140 years ago in Greek Revival style, stands at 4526 S. Wabash Av., where it served as a church in recent times. The city took it over after a fire inflicted minor interior damage last January.
Beginning late this month, probably, the 12-day moving process will begin and the house will come to rest at 1871 S. Indiana Av., on the western edge of the Prairie Avenue Historic District.
Several moving techniques were considered, including dismantling the building into three layers; traveling along railroad right-of-ways; and making part of the trip by putting the house on a barge in Lake Michigan.
Experts finally settled on a method which will be conventional except for the necessity of the spectacular crossing of the Chicago Transit Authority elevated tracks. Only the house’s Italianate cupola and a couple of other small parts will have to be removed.
On the first day, the building will be placed on a 64-wheel trailer pulled by a heavy truck and moved at walking speed to the west side of the elevated tracks at East 44th Street.
The next five days will be spent jacking up the house 25 feet, one foot at a time, while supportive cribbing is placed underneath.
On the seventh day, between midnight and 6 a.m., will come the moment of truth when the 150-ton house is winched across the tracks on rollers moving along steel I-beams. It will then be placed on a duplicate cribbing structure just east of the tracks.
If all goes smoothly, the crossing may take only 30 minutes, although the CTA is providing the six-hour time cushion just in case. At no time will any of the movers’ rigging rest on the elevated structure. As another safety precaution, a temporary fence will surround the area at ground level.
Lowering the house from its perch east of the tracks will require another five days. On the 12th day, the rest of the slow-motion journey will be made and the building placed on extra-wide footings (for easy centering) at its destination.
Then will begin a slow and meticulous job of renewal under the direction of Wilbert R. Hasbrouck, an architect whose practice is devoted to the restoration and adaptive re-use of architecturally or historically interesting buildings. Appropriately, his office is in an old mansion at 1900 S. Prairie Av., inside the historic district.
Since the city retained him for the job two years ago, Hasbrouck and assistants Ana Wolfe and Mark Browning have made hundreds of interior and exterior photos of the house; measured it in every conceivable way; turned out scores of drawings; and subjected the dwelling to architectural archeology.
The later includes cautious drilling, peeling back, and in other ways exposing the guts of the house to find out how it was originally put together and then changed over the years.
Hasbrouck can look at an antique nail and tell you just about when it was pounded into place. He marvels over the Clarke house’s huge, hand-hewn oak beams; the still visible marks of such old-time tools as the adze; and the masterful carpentry performed more than a century ago.
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His intricate preparations are necessary because the house will be subjected to “museum quality” restoration — the only dwelling in Chicago to receive such treatment, according to Hasbrouck.
This means it will look precisely as it did when it was new, with no design shortcuts, fake materials, or compromises. Even the species and location of trees around the house will be as they were in the 1800s. Wiring, plumbing, and electric lighting will be hidden because there weren’t any when the house was built.
The biggest challenge will be recreating a pillar-supported portico removed from the front of the residence about 1871. To do this, Hasbrouck must rely almost wholly on the only known daguerreotype photo of the house made before that date.
Named for the pioneer Chicago hardware dealer and banker who built it, Clarke house will be opened next summer to the public as a highlight of the historic district. It will be a museum telling the story of itself and early Chicago. Period furnishings will enhance it.
Workmen are already tearing up the 1800 block of Prairie Avenue to install authentic-looking sidewalks, street surfacing, and street lights of the period. In charge is Jerome R. Butler Jr., city architect, who won national honors last spring for restoring Navy Pier.
Existing mansions on the street and an architectural park will ultimately turn the district into a showcase for Chicago history and design.
(Editor’s note: The Clarke house was moved in December 1977. It’s now a museum.)
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