The Star Beacon; Ashtabula, Ohio

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  • WARREN DILLAWAY / Star Beacon ERIC BOLEY of Stein House Movers (lower left) watches closely as a cottage is moved along Route 531 in Geneva-on-the-Lake.

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October 12, 2010

You’ve got to move

Owners preserve cottages rather than demolishing them

By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - mtrax@starbeacon.com Star Beacon

GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE — The little cluster of cottages has been in Ed Shearson’s family for as long as his mother can remember. A legacy of family and tradition, of summertime memories and fun by the lake, the cottages represent history and commitment to community.

Instead of tearing down two cottages, the Shearson family decided to move both and retrofit the smallest into a two-car garage, Ed Shearson said, giving neighbors on Lake Road and Jolly Drive something to see as the smaller cabin was driven across the road to its new foundation.

On Monday the Cleveland and Cortland based Stein House Movers lifted and moved the second, larger cottage to a different location on the lakefront property, all to make way for one more cottage.

“We have lived there for quite awhile,” Shearson said. “We are third-generation cottage owners. My grandfather and great grandfather built some of those cottages and it was important to us to keep it going for future generations.”

Shearson said the cottages as rentals don’t make much money, so the family decided to “reorganize” the property and keep just one cottage as a rental unit.

Once called “Rawdon Cottages” for his mother Roberta Shearson’s maiden name, the cottages have been rented weekly each summer for 40 years, Shearson said. The high cost of maintaining the property became a factor as tourists began to rent by the weekend, not by the week, he said.

“We have been struggling with what to do with the cottages,” Shearson said. “There were a lot of different plans. You can make money on cottage rentals, but it is a difficult business. Cottages are a lot of maintenance and we thought, well, why not change it a little so that the family can live here.”

Shearson said he considered tearing down two of the cottages, but decided through the advice of Matt Stein of Stein House Movers to move one and turn it into a garage.

“ I looked at the little cottages and the one had just been painted and fixed up and it was a shame to tear it down. So we thought ‘Why throw it away when we can move it?’ We recycled it and got our garage for half the cost,” he said.

Jessie Humenik, spokesperson for Stein House Movers, said the company moves houses big and small. Using hydraulic dollies, the structures are lifted off their foundations and supported with steel beams.

“We move a lot of historic houses and barns,” she said, “but the little cottages presented their own challenges. The buildings (in the village) are small - a lot smaller in scale than we are used to - but space is tight. There are a lot of cottages so close together.”

Humenik said the company works to preserve historic buildings, but also has an interest in recycling the structures whenever possible. Moving structures, from dream houses in the wrong place to cottages that need to be moved just 80 feet.

“We do so much work in northeast Ohio that we opened a Cleveland office two months ago,” she said.

For more information on moving houses and other structures, visit www.steinhousemovers.com.

Shearson said he thinks the little cottage was moved once before when his mother was just a child.

“When my mom was a kid the cottage was moved from another property on the south side of lake road and now we moved it from the east side of Jolly Drive to the west side of Jolly Drive. That little cottage gets around,” he said.

Shearson said he is thrilled to keep the property and the cottages in the family.

“Our family loves living at Geneva-on-the-Lake,” he said. “We have been living there so long and we rented cottages pretty much all that time - every single summer for 40 years. Its great to know it will be that way for future generations, too.”

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