MONROE - A 140-ton house is perched upon massive I-beams and dwarfs the huge, 6x6 (six-wheel drive) Oshkosh truck that pulled it a half-mile through a snowy field. From Wisconsin 69, it appears impressive, but sitting precariously, at the top of a hill near Aebly Road.
On Tuesday, brothers Dennis and Rusty Childs of Heritage Movers, LLC, and their sons, Brett, Aaron, Matthew and Seth, along with friend Mike Stitzer, were getting the home staged at Aebly Road for its midnight run north on Wis. 69.
The three-mile highway journey is scheduled for midnight Thursday, with a state or county escort, and should take about three hours.
The first of four homes, known as the Whitehead mansions, is being moved from the 50-acre site of Menard's future megastore north of Monroe to the Sunset Hills subdivision farther north.
The rig can travel up to 20 mph, but probably will get to only 5 mph.
It took four hours, at about 2 mph through the field, to get the house to the staging area - about two hours more than was expected.
At about noon, the orange Oshkosh tractor, a refitted cement truck, slugged down at a soft ridge just 40 yards short of its staging destination. Matthew said he had cleared the snow from the ridge that morning and the ground was still unfrozen.
"You can see where the tires sunk in about three inches," he said.
How does one pull out a tractor and trailer with 140 tons on it?
"We called a semi wrecker," Aaron said with a smile. "We'll just pay someone; it saves wear on the truck."
L&S Truck Service, Juda, arrived an hour later, with a heavy duty winch mounted to a Peterbilt.
Kim Bahe of Blanchardville, a partner with Jeff Garthwaite in the million-dollar relocation project, was on hand Tuesday to watch the progress.
"This one project just perpetuates business," he said. "It's amazing how so many local businesses are involved, which adds to the economy."
Behe said the Heritage Movers have made purchases at Farm & Fleet, Monroe Trucking, a rental service, and other businesses for the project.
By 2 p.m., L&S had helped pull the tractor and the house up over the soft ridge and onto solid flat ground.
But in the process, the Oshkosh had broken an axle.
The Childs family and Stitzer moved in position to fix it on the spot.
All of them wear brown coats and coveralls, and with their heads bent over the wheels, it's hard to tell them apart.
One face popped out of the brown group. It was Matthew's.
"It'll take about an hour to take the old one out and another hour to put one in ... and about 10 hours to find one," he said, and flashed a smile.
Even with the extra work and expense, his demeanor remained unruffled.
Crossbeamed inside to prevent twisting or sagging, the house was taken around the homestead through an adjacent, snow-covered field, because the long, straight, flat driveway is blocked by two rows of trees.
At 10 a.m. the men were busy climbing under the raised and mounted house, attaching brake lines to the trailer.
"We usually don't use them," Aaron said of the brakes. "The truck stops it good enough."
But because of all the snow and the hills in the field, the men took extra precaution.
Aaron also explained the first house would be the hardest to move, because it has a sunken floor.
"But it doesn't matter. Could have just as easily been ... that one, " he said, pointing to a second mansion.
Aaron admitted he liked his work "sometimes, like today, when I don't have to lift anything."
The Childs discovered the overhanging roofs of the house did not need added bracing, even after the columns were removed.
One reason is that the roof had extra 2x6 inch trellises in the overhanging area, and didn't even need the columns, which couldn't support any weight anyway.
"The columns are made of aluminum," Dennis said. "You could just pick them up."
In fact, inside the column were cables that anchored the eaves down, so the wind didn't blow them up, he said.
With Seth driving the rig, the other men darted in and out from under the moving house to measure the hydraulic rams.
"The rams can go out to 16 inches," Rusty said. Any more than that required an adjustment to be made to another.
The mansions are not the largest buildings the Childs have moved.
Last year in Galena, the men moved a 260-ton, two-and-a-half story home with brick walls four layers thick.
Heritage Movers is a fourth generation company that Dennis and Rusty bought from their father.
Bahe said he has every confidence in Heritage Movers doing the raising and moving, based on the company's long history of moving houses.
In an interview last week, Jeff Garthwaite, of Garthwaite Auction and Reality and Garthwaite Homes, said the houses, without garages, are priced at $270,000, moved and set up. The garages were removed for the relocation.
"The houses are appraised at $380,000 without the garages," he said. "But I figured out it would cost about $800,000 to rebuild them."
Bahe said he received a call from a man in California asking about purchasing one of the houses.
Bahe plans to live in one of the houses once they're moved.
Heritage Movers will move the houses in two-week intervals if the weather cooperates. The Childs family would like to see it stay freezing.
On Tuesday, brothers Dennis and Rusty Childs of Heritage Movers, LLC, and their sons, Brett, Aaron, Matthew and Seth, along with friend Mike Stitzer, were getting the home staged at Aebly Road for its midnight run north on Wis. 69.
The three-mile highway journey is scheduled for midnight Thursday, with a state or county escort, and should take about three hours.
The first of four homes, known as the Whitehead mansions, is being moved from the 50-acre site of Menard's future megastore north of Monroe to the Sunset Hills subdivision farther north.
The rig can travel up to 20 mph, but probably will get to only 5 mph.
It took four hours, at about 2 mph through the field, to get the house to the staging area - about two hours more than was expected.
At about noon, the orange Oshkosh tractor, a refitted cement truck, slugged down at a soft ridge just 40 yards short of its staging destination. Matthew said he had cleared the snow from the ridge that morning and the ground was still unfrozen.
"You can see where the tires sunk in about three inches," he said.
How does one pull out a tractor and trailer with 140 tons on it?
"We called a semi wrecker," Aaron said with a smile. "We'll just pay someone; it saves wear on the truck."
L&S Truck Service, Juda, arrived an hour later, with a heavy duty winch mounted to a Peterbilt.
Kim Bahe of Blanchardville, a partner with Jeff Garthwaite in the million-dollar relocation project, was on hand Tuesday to watch the progress.
"This one project just perpetuates business," he said. "It's amazing how so many local businesses are involved, which adds to the economy."
Behe said the Heritage Movers have made purchases at Farm & Fleet, Monroe Trucking, a rental service, and other businesses for the project.
By 2 p.m., L&S had helped pull the tractor and the house up over the soft ridge and onto solid flat ground.
But in the process, the Oshkosh had broken an axle.
The Childs family and Stitzer moved in position to fix it on the spot.
All of them wear brown coats and coveralls, and with their heads bent over the wheels, it's hard to tell them apart.
One face popped out of the brown group. It was Matthew's.
"It'll take about an hour to take the old one out and another hour to put one in ... and about 10 hours to find one," he said, and flashed a smile.
Even with the extra work and expense, his demeanor remained unruffled.
Crossbeamed inside to prevent twisting or sagging, the house was taken around the homestead through an adjacent, snow-covered field, because the long, straight, flat driveway is blocked by two rows of trees.
At 10 a.m. the men were busy climbing under the raised and mounted house, attaching brake lines to the trailer.
"We usually don't use them," Aaron said of the brakes. "The truck stops it good enough."
But because of all the snow and the hills in the field, the men took extra precaution.
Aaron also explained the first house would be the hardest to move, because it has a sunken floor.
"But it doesn't matter. Could have just as easily been ... that one, " he said, pointing to a second mansion.
Aaron admitted he liked his work "sometimes, like today, when I don't have to lift anything."
The Childs discovered the overhanging roofs of the house did not need added bracing, even after the columns were removed.
One reason is that the roof had extra 2x6 inch trellises in the overhanging area, and didn't even need the columns, which couldn't support any weight anyway.
"The columns are made of aluminum," Dennis said. "You could just pick them up."
In fact, inside the column were cables that anchored the eaves down, so the wind didn't blow them up, he said.
With Seth driving the rig, the other men darted in and out from under the moving house to measure the hydraulic rams.
"The rams can go out to 16 inches," Rusty said. Any more than that required an adjustment to be made to another.
The mansions are not the largest buildings the Childs have moved.
Last year in Galena, the men moved a 260-ton, two-and-a-half story home with brick walls four layers thick.
Heritage Movers is a fourth generation company that Dennis and Rusty bought from their father.
Bahe said he has every confidence in Heritage Movers doing the raising and moving, based on the company's long history of moving houses.
In an interview last week, Jeff Garthwaite, of Garthwaite Auction and Reality and Garthwaite Homes, said the houses, without garages, are priced at $270,000, moved and set up. The garages were removed for the relocation.
"The houses are appraised at $380,000 without the garages," he said. "But I figured out it would cost about $800,000 to rebuild them."
Bahe said he received a call from a man in California asking about purchasing one of the houses.
Bahe plans to live in one of the houses once they're moved.
Heritage Movers will move the houses in two-week intervals if the weather cooperates. The Childs family would like to see it stay freezing.