STANWOOD – One of Stanwood’s oldest houses moved last week, but it probably won’t have to change its address.
The Stanwood Area Historical Society hired Steve Faulkner, a local home mover, to jack up the Tolin House and roll it 20 feet to the south. It now sits cozied up closer to the society’s Pearson House after Faulkner and his crew moved it Tuesday.
The historical society decided to move the Tolin House to make more room for a planned courtyard between the house and the newly restored Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center.
“You can see there’s a lot more space now for activities,” said Dave Eldridge of the historical society.
Both homes were built in the 1880s, Eldridge said. The first story of D.O. Pearson’s house was probably built around 1883. Then Edward and Ann Tolin had their home built in about 1888. Pearson had a second and third story added on to his home in 1890, Eldridge said.
West Stanwood has a few homes that are older, but these two have been historically restored and are part of the society’s blooming four-building campus.
Completing the courtyard with arbors and sidewalks will end a three-year, $1.5 million construction project that resurrected the two-story cultural center and added a modern annex with a kitchen.
For a small-town nonprofit group, the effort is no small feat. The group raised the money through several big grants and even bigger donations from a few local history buffs. And this is only the first of two construction phases.
Phase two would involve connecting the new center’s annex to the society’s old annex behind the Pearson House.
“But that’s a long way down the road,” Eldridge said.
The next step for the 24-by-48-foot Tolin House will be to pour a new foundation.
Phase two would have to wait indefinitely for a new fund-raising drive. But Eldridge said the group will get a much-deserved rest from the stresses of construction projects.
“Now I can go back to museum work,” he said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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