California House Moved to Safety
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Dec. 18, 2008
When historian Christine Gary heard two years ago that her city of Corona, Calif., planned to tear down residences on a blighted downtown street, she immediately made plans to save one of the doomed 19th-century houses.
At midnight on Dec. 8, Gary watched her dream come true as a truck moved a 780-square-foot house safely onto her property.
"It had to be saved," says Gary, president of the Corona Historical Society. "It's part of our history, and I wanted to save it for our [city's] kids."
Built in 1897 by firefighter Joseph Brumbaugh, the two-bedroom house is a local landmark. Gary convinced the city to sell it to her for $1, and the city will contribute $10,000 toward the $45,000 move. The Brumbaugh House will serve as Gary's guest house and also as a meeting place for the local fire department and the Corona Historic Preservation Society.
Once known as the "lemon capital of the world," Corona has 144,000 residents and is located 45 miles from Los Angeles.
So far, the city has not finalized plans for the nearly-cleared downtown block. Only one house remains—a California bungalow—and Gary hopes someone will step forward to do what she did.
"If they have land and want to build a house, why start from scratch? [Relocating an old house] is so much better than building a new one."
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Comments
Submitted by Anonymous at: January 18, 2010
That is exactly what we would like to do but we are looking for a larger house. Where would we start in our search? We live in Upland