Saturday, April 21, 2007 12:13 AM CDT
Home dream home
Moving a Victorian home was an exciting but harrowing adventure for Andrew and Sharon Leynes
By TONY REID, Staff Writer
treid@herald-review.com
Progress can be a double-edged sword.
Just ask the Leynes family of Lovington, who for years had sought a spacious Victorian home in the country and couldn’t find one.
Sharon Leynes did remember reading somewhere about how technology had progressed to the point where specialist firms could jack up the house of your dreams, should you be able to find it, and literally move it down the highway to wherever you wanted.
So when the family did finally discover the perfect empty three-story Victorian with a turret sitting by an encroaching industrial site in Atwood, next to U.S. Route 36, Mrs. Leynes knew what to do: She’d simply pick up the house everybody loved and drop it into the ideal location somewhere else.
“She’s a visionary, she is persistent, and she follows through,” said her husband, Andrew. “But I was actually hoping that she really wouldn’t pursue this because, well, it just seemed overwhelming in my mind.”
Turns out, he was right on the money. It took 18 months of negotiation to buy the house for $35,000 — basically, just its lumber value — and another $30,000 to arrange for it to be trucked 13 miles down the road to a new site prepared for it in the country, 1½ miles west of Lovington.
The moving date for the 40-foot-high house was finally set for Dec. 2, 2003, and it was drama all the way.
“We didn’t realize, for example, that we had to yank out all the ductwork for the heating and air conditioning and take out all the brickwork for two chimneys and fireplaces as preparation for the move,” Mrs. Leynes said.
“And I had to coordinate with three power companies and both a telephone and cable company to move lines that were in the way along the route and hire tree people to trim branches out of the way. It was a very big deal.”
They needed the Illinois State Police to shut down the road, but due to a communications mix-up, the police didn’t show up at the appointed 9 a.m. time. The family — mom, dad, four kids — would spend a white-knuckle hour making frantic phone calls while their future home sat perched on a giant trailer by the side of the road as a crowd of onlookers — many in lawn chairs — watched and waited.
Finally, the police galloped to the rescue around 10 a.m., and the show hit the pavement.
At this point, a helpful observer from the Illinois Department of Transportation stepped in with some not-so-comforting words: “He said if the weight of the house (about 120 tons) started doing any damage to the highway, it would have to be abandoned by the side of the road,” Leynes said. “He said that after we got it moving.”
The movers themselves boast they can shift a house with a glass of water on the dining table and not spill a drop, and that’s probably true — they’re very experienced. The trouble is that when your wooden house was built in 1890 and has had 113 years to settle unevenly, the moving process squares it up so it can rest on the trailer — and that adjustment did a number on the interior plaster.
The family wound up having to drywall 50 percent of the interior, and that led to other interesting discoveries.
“We found the original insulation was corn cobs,” Mrs. Leynes said. “They had taken the corn off and filled the walls with corn cobs.”
The family patiently worked through it all, doing a lot of the repairs themselves, and when they needed a big break, they got one. Sort of.
It started as major trouble when the new foundation cracked and warped before the house could be set in place. But, totally unexpectedly, the foundation eased back into shape on its own when the weather changed. “That,” she said, “was a miracle.”
All of which prepares visitors for the stunning sight of what the Leynes family has wrought on an 8-acre lot, with swimming pool, that commands five-mile views of the prairie.
Their new/old house rises triumphantly from the surrounding fields and, apart from the fresh scars of its landscaping, looks for all the world like it has been sitting there since Benjamin Harrison was president.
The couple — she works in advertising, he’s a landlord — have rehabbed some 15 houses together, and they gave their do-it-yourself skills full play. Mrs. Leynes, for example, mastered the scroll saw to repair fretwork on a big south-side porch. Inside, a huge kitchen boasts a new tin ceiling and acres of new oak cabinets.
The rest of the 4,500-square-foot interior is full of nicely finished oak floors and woodwork, while the walls are transformed into vast canvases for her considerable skills with faux paint finishes and murals.
And that big basement now houses a fully equipped recreation room and home theater — complete with two rows of tiered seating — that is a favorite with children Ethan, 17, Jordan, 15, and Leah, 13.
There are four-poster beds upstairs, antique furniture everywhere and eye-popping views out every window. The whole home conveys a sense of spacious and gracious living with an easy charm that new houses struggle to achieve.
The family’s eldest son, Aaron, 18, got married and had his wedding reception there Aug. 11, and the 70 guests were handled with ease.
“We love to entertain, and we’ve had, what, 14 parties here — from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl to six birthday parties” in about a 10-week span, Mrs. Leynes said. “Oh, and we had a Christmas walk, too. The people who come in here are pretty amazed that a house like this could have been picked up and moved like that.”
The family is still kind of amazed, too, recalling the experience the way combat veterans relive a firefight.
“It’s a beautiful house, and we’re really enjoying it,” she said, glancing at her husband. “But moving your dream house is not for the faint of heart.”
Contact Tony Reid at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.
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 Kelly J. Huff (JG/T-C)
Andrew and Sharon Leynes and their children Jordan, 15, Leah, 13, and Ethan, 17, outside their home.
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