The Big Lift in Old Du Quoin
croessman@duquoin.com
Neither rain, sleet, snow--nor fog--was going to keep an Old Du Quoin couple from fulfilling their dream of a new home along Old Rt. 14 Tuesday morning.
It was a traffic-stopping event (in fact, an Illinois State Police unit was there as a safety precaution) as two 15-by-72 foot modular home sections were carefully lifted from semi-tractor trailers and swung into place on a hilltop walk-out basement foundation.
The homeowners are Robert and Elizabeth Wall. They say that time has not been kind to a vintage two-story house immediately east of where the new home is going on.
You might remember Robert from a story last summer on the onset of the cicada emergence in Southern Illinois. A great person, ex-military, who shared his experiences of being surrounded by thousands of the noisy locusts at his home.
They probably won't be back after concrete contractor David Short of Royalton turned the Wall side yard into a world class excavation for the new walk-out basement. The cicadas couldn't dig deep enough to hibernate for another 17 years until their next emergence.
Problem solved.
The Walls have been working with Mike Henson of Pine Ridge Homes in Benton to custom design and build the home. It is very much like a site built home--in some ways better--then trucked to the location.
The uneven terrain made it impossible to simply pull the semis up to the foundation and "scoot" the house over.
Instead it took a 150-ton crane from Custom Crane Service of Decatur to gather the heavy straps that were evenly spaced around the house and cradling its journey to the foundation.
There were two modules to the home, each weighing an estimated 65,000 pounds (32 1/2 tons). Each section was fairly quickly lifted off the trailers and swung into place. A crew from Pine Ridge Homes made sure the two sections were lowered into a snug fit.
The Walls say it is truly a custom-built home. The builder, Richcraft Homes of Michigan is calling this one "The Liz" design from wife Elizabeth Wall.
A garage and two custom decks on the back side of the home will complete the project by April.