Well-Known Building Moves

Eastman Building Movers has gotten newspaper coverage of some of our moves because they can attract quite a crowd! The whole process from jacking and cribbing to the actual move is an exciting thing to see. Whether we move the building across town or across the state, people are interested. While we focus on Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts in our business, there is no shortage of well-known house and building moves across the world.

Locally in New England one of the more famous moves was also an international move. The Yin Yu Tang House at the Peabody Essex Museum was moved from China to Salem, MA and opened as a museum exhibit. This 18th century home is a representation of a home that the average family from China would occupy during this period. The move was a painstaking process of cataloging and crating roof tiles, wall panels, beams, and other pieces and then unpacked and pieced back together after the 13000 mile trip to Massachusetts. All pieces were reassembled by the same carpenters who took it apart in China.

Continuing in China, we have the heaviest instact building that has ever been moved. According to the Guiness Book of World Records the Fu Gang Building in China is the heaviest building ever moved intact. Twelve lifting jacks with a 200-ton capacity EACH were brought in to move the 33,377,986 pound building. It didn’t have too far to travel, as the building was moved 125 feet during a neighborhood revitalization project. This unique building relocation took 11 days to finish as the pace needed to move the building safely was about one foot per hour.

Another famous international move, the moving of the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church from Spain and Miami Beach, FL is one that took a very long time. This building was again dismantled and rebuilt, but money was the issue in the length of time to settle it in its new home. The building was built in Sacramenia, Spain in around 1140 CE and it was closed in the 1830s. 

William Randplph Hearst bought the building in 1925 and arranged for its dismantling and shipping to the US. However, the completion of the move hit a snag when he had financial problems and the crates in which the building were packed were stored until 1951. After Hearst’s death, the new owners took 19 months to re-assemble the structure and it is now an Episcopal Church in Miami. 

The final structure move we are showcasing is the Belle Tout Lighthouse in East Sussex, England which was a scary 12 feet from the edge of a rapidly eroding cliff. To preserve this building which has stood as a beacon to keep ships safe since the early 1800s, engineers working on the moving project set up a system of lubricated beams and using hydraulic jacks, pushed this 850 ton lighthouse inland about 56 feet.

While Eastman Building Movers were not involved in these historic moves, we understand the precision and attention to detail that goes into each move. These complicated moves speak to the expertise that we all have as building movers. Contact us today at 401-885-4216 to start your building moving project.