New lease on life possible for ‘Up’ house
Group wants to move fabled home to San Juan Islands, but by barge, not balloons
A Seattle home, known affectionately by local residents as the “Up” house because of the aged owner’s refusal to sell to make way for a shopping mall, is getting ready for a new lease on life. The non-profit OPAL Community Land Trust has launched a $205,000 Kickstarter campaign to relocate the house by barge to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands, about 160 kilometres north.
“At the time we hit our goal, we can start all the process to get it (to Orcas Island). Our hope is that we’ll be funded by the middle of September,” said spokeswoman Judy Whiting said. She said that the campaign will cover various permits at both ends as well as the cost of the barge.
“There are a lot of logistics involving a lot of people that nobody usually thinks about much. But we’ve moved 10 houses so we’re beginning to have quite a sophisticated understanding about what it takes,” she added.
The house, built in1900, was owned by the late Edith Macefield, who refused a $1-million offer in 2006 to sell and had the mall built around her.
Local people began putting balloons around the property because of similarities to the film, Up. In that film, an elderly man who is facing a bleak future in a retirement home turns his house into an airship with the aid of helium balloons.
When Macefield died in 2008 at the age of 86, she willed the property to Barry Martin, the mall’s construction supervisor. It changed hands several times, with the last owner defaulting while in the midst of a major renovation.
“The house itself looks terrible on the outside . . . but it has good bones,” Whiting said, noting the interior is basically new.
The land trust acquired the twobedroom, one-bathroom house earlier this year and plans to offer it to a deserving family.
“We can only guess that the house will continue to have some fame and, if it does, we want to be sure we find a family that can cope with that,” Whiting said.
The land trust has a portfolio of 103 homes and 29 rental apartments. People living in these homes comprise about 5 per cent of the island’s year-round population, she added.
Whiting noted that Martin, who befriended Macefield in her final years, has written a book about her life based on their many conversations. Among the things he learned: that Macefield, the cousin of Benny (King of Swing) Goodman, was also an avid musician who loved classical and swing music.
“One of the things I’m hoping will happen is when (Macefield’s) house arrives, the swing band can go there and play the house off the barge and into the community,” Whiting said.
“The great thing about relocating any house is that it’s very efficient to recycle a house and it keeps tons of stuff out of landfills.
“It turns out to be a really wonderful thing to be able to do, to find a house that’s healthy and just needs to be moved,” she added.