May 26, 2005
The 81-year old Zook house buildings are spending their first night tonight at their new site in Katherine Legge Memorial Park, just a few feet from where they will permanently rest on new foundations in about three weeks, and a few more feet to the west of the well-known, Zook-designed Lodge.
The first of the four buildings in the move convoy, the northwest addition, arrived just before evening yesterday, and the last building, the main house, arrived as night fell at 8:30 p.m.
Their arrival marked the end of a complicated two-day move that provided a spectacle unlike anything seen before in Hinsdale.
The second day of the move began at 9:30 a.m. with the time-consuming crossing of 55th Street at Elm Street, which involved rolling the buildings over a half-block of turf and several feet of stone fill to pavement. The last building cleared the street by 2 p.m.
The rest of the move was uneventful except for two and sometimes three tractor trucks needed to pull the buildings up slopes, the trimming of a large tree limb in the path of the main house and the collision of one building with three curbside mailboxes. The latter were slightly damaged.
On the hill leading to the entry to the Park, the Village of Hinsdale's large, new front-end loader was used to carefully pull the tractor that pulled the main house.
The re-assembly of the Zook house will begin later today with positioning the sections of the house so they can be rolled onto their new foundation, whose concrete footings will be poured today or tomorrow.
The new setting for the Zook house seemed to win the approval of everyone in the crowd of 200 or so that was present for the arrival of the buildings at the park.
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