Dan's Papers - June 29, 2007

House moving is an old and time-honored tradition here in the Hamptons but until now, all houses have been moved by placing them up on I beams with wheels and pulling them with big trucks. Now comes the Johnson House. This particular home, owned by Frederick Z. Johnson on Further Lane in East Hampton, is going to be transported to a farm in Bedford, New York, to become the summer home of a New York City family that prefers to remain anonymous. This family recently bought a former dairy farm up by the airport, and while visiting the Johnsons, fell in love with it and offered to purchase it for $700,000. The Johnsons wanted it moved because they intend to build a bigger house, and thus the sale was consummated.

Joseph Davis of Davis House Moving of Westhampton Beach was hired to make the move to Bedford, but soon realized that moving it the regular way -- by towing it down the various highways and byways for nearly 250 miles -- would be enormously expensive. It would be far cheaper to fly it there. Of course, Davis House Moving has never tried to fly a house before. Indeed, no other house moving company has ever flown a house. It is a first.

The Davis Company's original idea was to tow the house to the East Hampton Airport and then fly it from there. But on learning that the house does not qualify, by FAA standards, as something that could be flown out of the airport, Davis House Moving put plan B into effect. They would fly it directly from the 14-acre Johnson Property. They applied to the Town for a permit to do so. And by a vote of 4-3, the permit was approved.

Davis has built wings on the house, as you see, and has attached an electric metal motor to the front of it, on the left. Using a handheld remote control, they will fire it up, have it gather speed down this dirt road on the property and take off into the prevailing winds from the southwest. They will need at least a 20-mile-per-hour gust to get it airborne.

Davis hoped to have the remote direct the plane the entire way to Bedford, in order to avoid having to have a pilot in the structure for this dangerous journey. But since the range of the remote is only two miles, there would have to be a trailing car below, staying within range and it was felt that given the vaguarities of traffic flow, it might result in a loss of contact and eventual crash, which would leave the new owners heartbroken. Instead, 84-year-old Herman Stipple of Noyac, a former World War II Spitfire pilot from the RAF, will fly the house solo the whole way.

Davis has held three practice runs so far in anticipation of the flight, with Stipple operating the levers within the structure to keep it down the center of the dirt road. And with each practice, he has increased the speed of the house, until the last one, held on Sunday afternoon, which had the house charging down the road at 75 miles-per-hour. All went well. And Stipple said afterwards that he had to do all he could do to keep the house from going airborne.

The flight to Bedford should take place at two p.m. this coming Thursday, barring an unexpected change in the weather.