Historic Tuscumbia house relocated to new home

Moving typically involves a family making a home in a new house.

But in Tuscumbia on Feb. 10, visitors got to watch a house itself moving to a new home.

The historic Rowland Youth House, which has been part of First Presbyterian Church since the 1950s, was moved to a new location on Third Street, just a block over.

The building has been used to hold the church’s youth activities.

As many as 40 residents were on hand to watch the process as the house, which had been lifted intact onto a trailer, was carried down Fourth Street towards its new home.

Andrew Walker, who undertook the moving project, said the church was considering demolishing the house, as they needed more room for their growing youth group.

The house was built by the Rowland family in 1926 before eventually becoming part of the church.

First Presbyterian Church is a historic site itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“I heard their plans were to demolish the house, and I didn’t want to see us lose that out of our historic fabric,” Walker said. “This is the only arts and crafts brick home of its type in Tuscumbia. I didn’t want to lose that.”

Walker is the chairman of the Tuscumbia Historic Preservation Committee, and the effort to maintain the Rowland house is a personal endeavor.

Walker has also been instrumental in helping to preserve Locust Hill, another historic home in Tuscumbia.

Just physically moving the Rowland house cost around $80,000, and that doesn’t include the need to have power utility lines temporarily moved out of the way and the new lot for the home to move to.

“The moving process is difficult,” Walker said. “You have to remove the power lines and secure a new lot. We were able to find a new lot just a block from the original site. We were able to keep it in the same neighborhood, which is important. The best thing for a historic home is to stay in the location it was built, but the church needed to expand, and this is the next best thing.

“You have the option of saving the house with the bricks attached or without. It is much more expensive to do it with the bricks attached, but it would have changed the look of the house to strip the bricks off and replace them.”

Once the dust is settled, Walker said he plans to turn the newly homed Rowland house into a short-term luxury vacation rental property.

“That way members of the community will still have access to it,” he said.