This home at 1115 Great Hill Road in Guilford is among the historic properties that the Regional Water Authority is offering for free to owners willing to move the houses away in their entirety.
It sounds too good to be true: historic properties from the Greater New Haven area offered up to potential owners for free. The catch? The owners themselves have to move the houses off the properties.
As part of its mission to maximize protection of the watershed, the New Haven-based Regional Water Authority is offering to give away 15 houses and a barn. The houses are located on public water supply watershed lands in Bethany, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, North Branford, Orange and Woodbridge.
People who are interested in participating in the program, however, must be willing to find a way to move the houses in their entirety.
According to Patricia Sweet, vice president of external affairs for the Regional Water Authority, “Recognizing that some of these houses may have significant historic value, we have attempted a balance of that value with the need to protect the watershed. We believe the removal of the houses to non-watershed land, and retaining the land where the houses once stood as open space, is a balanced decision.
“The authority is fully committed to working with individuals or organizations interested in removing the houses, thereby avoiding demolition.”
Three open houses have been held so far, and the response has been overwhelming, according to Maureen Campbell, spokeswoman for H. Pearce Co.
“The Regional Water Authority owns these houses on watershed property and they had been renting out the homes for years,” said Campbell. “Unfortunately, it was seen as a drain on the taxpayers because maintenance of the homes cost the authority a lot of money. Because it was their goal to preserve these watershed properties, rather than just demolish these houses, they decided to offer them to the public for free.”
In order to facilitate the marketing process, the authority contracted North Haven-based H. Pearce.
“They contracted with us to help them put all the pieces together in order to be able to offer this to the public,” said Campbell. “We’re holding open houses so people can come by and look at the structures with their contractors. Prospective owners will be able to evaluate the feasibility of the move as well as its potential cost.”
‘Learning Experience’
The open houses were staggered so as to allow as many interested people as possible the opportunity to view the houses. Campbell noted that everyone from first-time homeowners to architects to those specializing in historic home restoration has shown interest.
“The response has been unbelievable,” she said. “We’ve had everything from people hearing ‘free house’ and wanting to learn more, to some very serious people who have always liked these homes and want to take care of them. The phones have just been ringing off the hook since we started advertising these properties, and keeping up with all of the phone calls has been quite a task.”
The actual condition of the homes varies quite a bit; some are move-in ready and others are in need of serious repair. Those that were most recently occupied appear to be in the best shape, said Campbell, noting that all of them are most likely salvageable with a little work.
“This has been quite a learning experience for us,” said Campbell, adding that this is the first time H. Pearce has dealt in the home-moving business. In order to prepare, the company contacted several experts in the field to learn more about the cost and labor needed to actually move a home. Campbell learned after hearing from contractors and nonprofit groups specializing in home removal that a typical move can range between $50,000 and $100,000. Factors that may raise the price include the condition of the building, access to the property, the type of foundation and how far the house is going to be moved.
“Certainly many of [the properties] have interesting histories, and several are quite old,” said Sweet. “They all have character and charm, and they represent different eras of construction in the region.”
In order to better satisfy potential owners and learn more about the properties in question, the authority had a full report on all 16 properties conducted by the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. Sweet said she just received the report on Monday and hasn’t had time to peruse all of its contents.
“We have had a longstanding practice of purchasing watershed land in order to protect the quality of our water, and these properties were deemed important for water quality protection,” she said. “Some of them we purchased in the early 20th century, with one being bought in 1912. We own just under 26,000 acres of land in the Greater New Haven area, and it’s a practice we plan to continue. Right now we have 5 percent of the total watershed land in Connecticut. We’ve been very aggressive.”
According to Sweet, there are scientific determinations used to identify and label what is watershed land. The historic houses to be moved are on property near reservoirs and in areas where it is considered necessary to keep human activity to a minimum. However, Sweet said there was never intent to purchase the houses – they were simply on land that was important to the authority.
All of the properties have been rented out at times, but recently, because the authority knew it was going to end the rental program, it started leaving houses vacant once leases ran up. For a small number of houses, more work and expenses were required to keep them up as rentals, and they have been vacant for quite some time.
Once the houses are gone, which should be sometime over the next 18 months, the authority will fill in the foundations and maintain the land the same way it cares for the rest of its land. Much of the authority’s land is in a natural state, but some parts are used for recreational activities such as hiking, and, in a few cases, horseback riding and bicycling.
“Ultimately, the water that travels through watershed land will end up in people’s water glasses. But it goes through one of our reservoirs or wells before going through our distribution center,” said Sweet.
So far, the proposals coming in are as varied as the houses themselves. Some families are familiar with the properties, already own land in the area and feel that one of the houses would make a great adjunct to their estate. Others want to take all of the pieces of the home to live in, while still others simply want the parts. However, the condition is that each house must be entirely moved from the site, and simply salvaging parts on-site is not allowed.
Sweet said she received a call from one potential party interested in moving a house onto their property. But rather than putting it up on rollers, which is a common method, the party is considering having the entire house disassembled and then reassembled in another location. Sweet noted that utilities are often an obstacle in the moving process because of excess wires.
“There is more than one way to move a house,” she said.
Interested parties will be asked to submit their proposals no later than Dec. 31. The Regional Water Authority will then review all proposals and make a selection. The authority will give the awardees a period of up to 18 months to arrange funding and remove the houses.
