Rae Stockham, a class of 1907 Drake University Drake (a male duck, the University’s original mascot), grew up in a house with a diamond window at 1240 28th Street, right across from her future alma mater. After she graduated in 1907, she worked at Cowles Library, and in 1911 hosted a dinner at her house to celebrate George Washington’s birthday that was, as said in the Feb. 25 edition of The Times-Delphic, one of the week’s “delightful affairs.”
Stockham, however, did not stay put. After 10 years of work with Cowles, she moved to New York City to pursue a bachelor’s degree in library sciences.
The house with the diamond window hasn’t stayed put either. In the past century, the walls, windows and floor have traversed the Dogtown blocks twice. It has lived life as a family home and a church gathering place. Now, it might become a new family’s home again.
Ease on down the road
Wesley Foundation, a Methodist Church organization, purchased Stockham’s family home for use as a youth center in the summer of 1958. At the time, Wesley Foundation members used the house as a place for study and relaxation.
Seven years later, the University and Foundation traded land and the Foundation’s house moved to their new land 2718 University Ave., the former location of the Alpha Epsilon Phi House.
Wesley Foundation continued to maintain a local presence, hosting faith-related events for students.
Beginning in 2016, Venessa Macro, Chief Administrative Officer at Drake, served as the liaison between Wesley Foundation and Drake while Wesley Foundation was still active in the area.
“We’d check in periodically, just as a good neighbor, [asking] ‘Is there things we could collaborate on?’ Then they started to really have some financial challenges and [considered] whether or not they wanted to continue to own that property,” Macro said.
When deciding on the location of The Harkin Institute, Drake bought that land in 2020 to have in case they moved the Institute there. It is not the first property that they’ve moved houses off of.
“We try very much to preserve property that we own where it makes sense,” Macro said. “And so we have a practice of providing an incentive to anyone who wants to move those homes in the interest of preserving it.”
Incentives depend on the house’s price, but typically include testing for lead paint and abating asbestos. Since they did not want the house for real estate, Drake sent the house’s information to their list of regular contacts, and Silent Rivers, a development company, took up the case.
Silent Rivers makes ripples in Dogtown
Silent Rivers’s offices reside on a street full of moved houses, mostly from the Drake neighborhood. Chaden Halfhill, founder of Silent Rivers, began working on the house move a year and a half ago, dealing with roadblocks such as historic tax credit and cost because of distance. Neighborhood revitalization group InvestDSM funded the gap between the cost of moving the house and how much it would sell.
Halfhill ultimately chose the new location on 26th St. because the house would remain in the historic Drake neighborhood. In order to move a house, said Halfhill, there needs to be a pre-made foundation on its new lot.
Once the team has a location with a foundation, the team erects steel beams with wheels in key load-bearing locations, straps the house in and, little by little, lifts it onto a truck bed where the weight is distributed.
“It’s really like moving a big boat or any large truck. It just happens to be that it’s 50 tons,” Halfhill said.
Halfhill said that obstacles could include tree limbs or power lines and that the team was grateful that Wesley House wasn’t near many lines.
“There are a lot of factors between just lifting it, moving it, and it’s really fun to watch them. We were very fortunate to not have any weather conditions, but there’s been times where the mud is wet and a house will slide down a hill on wheels,” Halfhill said.
The house’s age posed no problems, but due to additions and size, the team cut out a porch that was not original to the building.
Currently, Silent Rivers is renovating the building and is looking to sell it. They hope to be done with renovations in summer or early fall, with the hope of a sale then.
Macro said that she wants more single-family homes in the neighborhood to provide faculty, students and staff with local and vibrant places to live.
Currently there are no plans for the now-empty lot where Wesley House last sat.
“It’ll be a nice green spot adjacent to some of the cultural homes across the street from the Harkin Institute. So there may be some outdoor uses in the short term that we use it for,” Macro said.
