'60s house move in Buena

[buckykattnj]

This is a very personal mystery, and is only very tangental to this forum, but since people here have a deep and broad knowledge, I figured I'd ask.

The house I grew up in was not built there. The house was built in the late '50s... and in the late '60s it was moved to its current location on Harding Hwy in Buena Vista Township. Apparently, the house originated near the intersection of Brewster Ave and Weymouth Rd.

Back then, it seems to me, house moves were not as common as they are today. Knowing how much a 10 year old house is worth and how much it costs to move a house, I have never understood why the house was moved. For years, I thought it might have been located too close to Downstown Airport.

Recently, using HistoricAerials, I determined that a house does seem to disappear from the corner of Brewster and Weymouth... and to this day, that property is empty. Sometime between 1968 and 1970, the house magically appears in its current location... about 6~7 miles away. The property the house was moved to had become derelict because the house seemed to have been destroyed in a fire in the '50s... also backed up my HistoricAerials maps.

While I realize that determining the exact reason someone would have moved the house is unlikely... I'm curious if anyone would know anything about the event or a source of info about the event. I lived there for a long time... and I don't remember any full size houses creeping down the street, so I imagine that any house move through Landisville and Buena would have generated some slight excitement back then.

Any thoughts or theories would be appreciated.

BK

 

[lakesgirl]

What is the cross road on Harding Highway? I am very familiar with the area having traveled that road back and forth to school through the 60's and 70's

 

[manumuskin]

my unclke lived on the northwest corner of brewster and weymouth back in i known 73,he lived there a few years.i was 9 in 73.the house is still there,it was red then i believe it is beige now.
aL

 

[buckykattnj]

First, I revisited the HistoricAerials, and either the years of the maps have changed, or my memory is faulty... but it looks like the window of the house move was not 1968~1970... but probably 1972 or 1973.

LakesGirl. to answer your question, the house was moved to Lorraine and Harding Hwy. If you drove by there regularly, you would have seen the house backed into the propery, sitting on the trailer/wheels for weeks. Apparently, according to the locals, the new foundation was not built until weeks after the house was moved.

Manumuskin, with my revised timeframe, it sounds like your uncle was there right around the time the house would have been moved. On the HistoricAerials 1972 map there is a house on the SE corner of Brewster and Weymouth (facing Weymouth, it appears). In the 1977 Atlantic County GIS, its gone. At the corner of Lorraine and Harding, no house in 1972... house in 1977.

In any case, it sounds like your uncle could have first hand knowledge of why the house was moved.

BK

 

[buckykattnj]

I was directed to check out the corner of Brewster and Harding Hwy, by a PM... and its interesting that not one, but TWO houses disappear from there, as well... one in 1970~1972 and one after 1977, I suppose.

But by revisiting the old aerial maps, I find it interesting how late Dale's barbershop at the corner of Brewster and Tuckahoe appears. I got my hair cut by Dale as a child... and by the building's patina, I would have thought that little building would have been there for decades, but it looks like it was moved/built there between 1963 and 1968.

Seeing the barbershop sit vacant makes me sad, as it had a certain charm. I imagine Dale probably left us years ago.