BATH

Sometimes history repeats itself in unexpected ways.

That’s what happened in Bath this week when Joseph Inman had a second house moved to a lot his family owns — 45 years after he had the first one moved there.

Copp & Sons, a Cumberland building moving company, did the heavy lifting Monday, transporting a house from the Plant Home property on Washington Street to the familyowned lot on High Street. Built by students in Bath’s vocational carpentry program in the 1970s — one of whom was Inman’s nephew — the 24-footby 36-foot house is now located at 187 High St., right next door to the first one Inman had moved.

It was 1969 when Inman had Nobleboro Movers move the first house, burning out their truck’s clutch in the process, he recalled Monday, as it made its way up Marshall Street. They had to throw blocking under the truck’s tires, Inman said, but only one caught, causing the truck to wrench sideways and the house nearly tipped.

This time around, the move was more fun to watch, he said.

The opportunity arose when Inman was watching a Planning Board meeting about the planned Plant Home expansion project and heard board members ask about the homes on the property. A Plant Home repre- sentative said they would give the homes to anyone who wanted to move them. Inman checked with the code enforcement officer, obtained the necessary permits and made the arrangements to move the house.

Clayton Copp owns Copp & Sons with his three sons and his brother, which was founded by his father in 1956. No one moves more buildings than them in the state, he said, because the way they move is faster. Most movers would spend a couple days rather than a couple hours getting this house on the foundation, he said.

The equipment has changed since the company was founded, Copp said.

“We build all this stuff,” he said.

That includes the two big trucks on site positioned on each side of the house as the crew worked to maneuver it into position over the foundation.

“We actually build the truck,” Copp said of the company’s trucks, which can bear 100 to 125 tons each. “We put the cab on and build the running gears so they’re all the same.”

And they built the lift on the back of one of the trucks too.

“It tilts, it slides, it lifts up in the air about 14 feet,” Copp said. “We built the whole thing right from scratch.”

Not only does the equipment require the ability to carry a house, it also has to be able to move along normal roads. That means there are challenges such as watching for wires or tree limbs, hoping there is the needed width and making sure when the road turns, the house doesn’t.

Every job is different and has its own challenges. On Monday, it was getting the house into the driveway sideways under a low wire, as well as traversing an incline. And any kind of angle is an added challenge. They recently moved a 68- foot-by-40-foot farmhouse, 40-feet high and about 2,000 feet down a soft field in Harpswell.

“You don’t know you’re stuck until you get a house stuck in the middle of a field,” Copp said, adding that you just keep putting traction under the wheels and moving forward when that happens. “You need patience.”

There’s no retirement from a family business like this, he said. Copp’s mother rode with him to look at jobs until the day she died at 85. They’d carry her out and put her in the truck because she wouldn’t stay home, and he said, “she’d still get out and boss.”

Inman’s roots in Bath date back to 1939, when his family moved so his father could take a job at Bath Iron Works. He was formerly a firefighter for the city and served in the military for six years. His son, Jody, who was a toddler in a photo that appeared in The Times Record with his parents documenting the first move, has worked on getting the foundation and site ready along with his 15-year-old son, Joey. Jody, now 48, is a master plumber and Joey is in the state’s plumbing apprenticeship program.

Jody said he expects it will take a month to finish the house, including installing a deck, completing the landscaping and then it should be ready to sell. Bob Berry did the foundation, J.R. Hill and Sons the excavating, Frank Dunning the masonry and Keller Williams Realty will sell the home.

“I’m real happy now that it’s sitting here,” Jody said. “Now we can all do our thing.”

dmoore@timesrecord.com