‘The Dorothies’ are on the move
Posted March 17, 2014 6:57 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – There’s no place like home for “The Dorothies,” a pair of character houses once slated for demolition despite their official heritage status.
In this case, “home” will be two blocks north to an empty lot at 41st and MacDonald in Vancouver.
“These are mirror-image houses, so they flipped the plan and it’s the identical house on the other side. They got their name because at a certain point, there were Dorothies living in both houses, so the name kind of stuck,” recalls local heritage advocate Caroline Adderson.
Crews from Nickel Brothers Industrial Movers will start moving the 81-year-old homes at 9:30 a.m. today and hope to finish the job by this afternoon.
The path isn’t exactly a yellow brick road, though.
“The homes will turn left going east on West 43rd Avenue until they come up to Macdonald Street. They’ll turn left on Macdonald Street, heading north for about a thousand feet or so until they get to West 41st Avenue, at which point they’ll turn left, heading west onto 41st Avenue and they’ll be backed into their position on the new site,” explains Rob Chetner with developer Trasolini-Chetner.
“[Then] you have the trimming of the trees, removal of overhead lines and if you have to cross over a major street that has the trolley lines, there’s a huge expense in de-energizing those lines and relocating them temporarily while the house gets moved.”
Chetner estimates the cost of the relocation to be between $250,000 and $350,000.
Critics feel it’s not an idea solution, but it beats losing the homes to the wrecking ball.
“It’s second-best to leaving them where they were, but at least they will be preserved and restored,” says Anthony Norfolk with Heritage Vancouver. “If anything, [they] will be a little more visible on 41st.”
“It’s far less a dramatic a move than taking them down to the river and barging them off to Vancouver Island or something. Moving them around the corner, comparatively, is the kind of thing [Nickel Brothers Industrial Movers does] very well and very easily.”
