Johnson County’s All-Electric House moving to Overland Park starting Tuesday night

Tuesday is moving day for the Johnson County’s Museum’s 1950s All-Electric House.

This is the second time in its history that the house has been moved. It is moving from the museum grounds at 6305 Lackman Road in Shawnee to the new Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center at 8788 Metcalf Ave. in Overland Park, the former site of the King Louie bowling alley.

“The house is up and ready to go,” said Mindi Love, the museum’s director. “We are already to go.”

Crews will move the house beginning at 7 p.m. It will head south on Lackman to Shawnee Mission Parkway. It then will head east on Shawnee Mission Parkway to Metcalf Avenue, where it will then head south to its destination.

The house will be moved inside the Arts & Heritage Center’s building. If everything goes as planned, the move will be completed between 3 and 5 a.m.

People can watch the move from the sidewalk or other public spaces on the route. People should avoid watching from any private property they do not own.

“If they are not blocking any traffic and they are on public property, certainly they can do that,” Love said. “The house moves at 3 to 5 miles per hour, so it’s not a quick process.”

Patton House and Building Movers Inc. of Paola will move the house. The company’s workers have been at the museum for a week, getting the house ready to roll.

“They basically had to jackhammer out the garage of the house. It was a poured-concrete garage,” Love said. “They were able to get underneath the house. This particular house did not have a basement when it was original built. It had a crawl space.”

Patton’s workers placed large steel beams through the crawl space then raised the house up on hydraulic lifts, which the house will be traveling on during the move, Love said.

As the house slowly makes the 9-mile trip through four cities, there will be intermittent street closures. Crews will accompany the house to move any obstacles and to put them back after the house passes.

“There are some areas where they are going to have to move some of the stop light arms. They will have to turn them out of the way,” Love said. “There are a few areas where they will be lifting power lines and stuff like that to accommodate the house.”

The house, built in 1953 by Kansas City Power & Light Co., was donated to the museum and moved to Shawnee in October 1994.

“This time, what’s different is that we are moving the entire house in one piece,” said Brad Reinhardt, Johnson County’s director of facilities. “Back in the 1990s, when we moved it before, the garage was disconnected from the house and moved separately.”

Advances to technology and equipment now allow the entire house to be moved at once. The move and all related work are expected to cost $260,000.

The house will be inside the Arts and Heritage Center to better preserve it and protect it from the weather. The center is scheduled to open next year.

“We’re excited this day is finally here,” Reinhardt said. “We are looking forward to a very successful move. It’s a just a big undertaking. There has been a lot of planning and a lot work that has gone into it.”

This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 8:43 PM.