
Moving a 320 year old house across an ocean from Japan to California - atanpur
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-house-moving-huntington-library-california
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Ftuuky
My father worked for a Swiss company in the 80s tut was specialized in moving
buildings. Sometimes they were huge buildings that only needed to be moved a
few meters so that a new rail could be added. But my father worked as foreman
for the small buildings like historical churches that were in the way of a new
road or something. One of my early memories are when my father was working so
near our house that my mother went with me to assist the move. It was so slow
except my father that was running in circles around the wooden church yelling
at everyone and everything, super stressed out. He loved the work so much that
it gave him ulcers so he moved back to Portugal and now restores old houses
for the rich guys that want a classy summer house in the countryside.

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short_sells_poo
That's very interesting. Please, if you have any stories, photos or anecdotes
to share, do so.

> He loved the work so much that it gave him ulcers.

I can well imagine. It sounds like the sort of process that only works if
someone with great amount of expertise and passion ensures that everything is
accounted for. I've never tried to relocate a building, but I assume that any
sort of problem quickly cascades from "oh dear" to "oh sh*t" with little to no
warning and no possible recovery.

~~~
Ftuuky
There’s photos but in physical format, next time I visit my parents I will try
to scan them. It’s mostly my father looking at buildings and pointing at
things with a concerned look in his face. :)

And yes, things could go wrong really fast and the problem is that it’s not
obvious something went wrong. The building won’t collapse immediately but the
structure gets compromised and will degrade much faster than expected and
there’s very little you could do except add some support beams which changes
the aesthetics and the client most definitely didn’t paid for that. So my
father would basically worry about every single decision and be super cautions
at the same time he was juggling tight deadlines (roads need to be closed on
specific days at specific hours, can’t be late but can’t rush the job
either...).

He misses the job but not my mother :)

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gryson
There are two open-air museums in Inuyama, Japan that this reminded me of: (1)
Meiji Mura, and (2) Little World.

Meiji Mura is an impressive collection of Meiji-era buildings that have been
gathered from around Japan, including the lobby of the Tokyo Imperial Hotel
(designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and two full-size churches from Kyoto.

Little World is primarily a collection of traditional houses that have been
transported to Japan and reconstructed from around the world.

The amount of effort that went into moving and re-building the dozens of
buildings at each site must have been incredible. Both are worth visiting if
you are near Nagoya.

(1) [https://www.meijimura.com/english/](https://www.meijimura.com/english/)

(2)
[http://www.littleworld.jp/english/index.html](http://www.littleworld.jp/english/index.html)

~~~
gchucky
There's also the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum outside of Tokyo[1]
(in Koganei, not the one in Ryogoku) that has some three dozen buildings that
have been moved there. They go back as far as the Edo period. Well worth the
time if you're in the area (though admittedly, kinda hard to get to).

[1] [https://www.tatemonoen.jp/english/](https://www.tatemonoen.jp/english/)

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NeedMoreTea
There's been quite a few buildings and churches deconstructed and transported
to the US over the years.

Here's two neighbouring properties in Richmond, Virginia, moved in the 20s -
one a 16th century priory, that's now next to a 15th century manor house. They
weren't even in neighbouring counties in England:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agecroft_Hall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agecroft_Hall)

~~~
noonespecial
Fascinating. My grandparents and now parents live in Stratford Hills. I've
looked across the river at those places my entire life and never knew the
stories. Thanks for that!

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a2tech
I’m glad it’s for a museum and not Larry Ellison’s personal Japanese village.

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AngryData
While it is pretty cool it can be done, it still seems like such a waste of
resources, time and effort. It would be cheaper to build an identical house
using traditional techniques and the end result would be the same. There are
lots of reasons to need to move an existing building, there are very little
reasons to move that building half way across the globe.

It just seems like extravagance for extravagance sake.

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newnewpdro
This reminded me of London Bridge getting sold to the developer of Lake
Havasu, AZ.

[https://www.history.com/news/how-london-bridge-ended-up-
in-a...](https://www.history.com/news/how-london-bridge-ended-up-in-arizona)

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rwmj
It's actually not unusual to dismantle and reconstruct these houses. There's a
famous story about an American journalist who moved to Japan and lived in a
rebuilt 18th century _minka_ which had been stored dismantled for several
years, video:
[https://www.nytimes.com/video/travel/100000003554407/minka-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/video/travel/100000003554407/minka-
a-farmhouse-in-japan.html?playlistId=100000003533279)

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simonw
If you've watched season one of The Good Place you've seen the Huntington
Garden - it was used for quite a few of the outdoor locations for the
Neighborhood.

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Causality1
>The wooden structure survived the firebombing campaigns

Yeah, and Mount Vernon survived 9/11\. Marugame was never firebombed or
targeted for firebombing.

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kevin_thibedeau
> Between 1603 and 1867, Japan existed in a state of harmony and economic
> growth.

That's a woefully untrue fantasy. Japan endured multiple famines and economic
crises prior to Meiji.

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ericol
I upvoted this submission just because of the title. Apologies.

