Lathrop House crosses the street

Built in 1863 where Fox Theatre stands at 2215 Broadway by Benjamin Lathrop, San Mateo County’s first clerk, the home has been a mainstay in downtown Redwood City for more than 155 years. Having moved to its current location on Hamilton Street in 1905 when the wife of Sheriff Joel Mansfield bought the home, the structure has been making its third move to a new location behind the San Mateo County History Museum since Wednesday, when crews finished lifting the structure 5 feet off the ground and started preparing it for the move across Marshall Street.

Sam Garcia, project manager with San Mateo County’s Project Development Unit, has been focused for some two years on coordinating the many components involved with moving the 10-room house from its current location, which is slated to become home to a new five-story county office building in the coming years. Having considered how the feat will be pulled off for months, Garcia has been gratified to see the Lathrop House begin making its way to the edge of the block bounded by Hamilton Street, Marshall Street and Middlefield Road Thursday and Friday.

“It’s glorious to see it move,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Resting on some 5 feet of wooden beams, the house had moved some 60 feet west of its original location as of Friday morning with the help of industrial rollers and hydraulic pushes, said Garcia. Crews were working to move the 3,393-square-foot home to the edge of the block by the end of the day Friday so they could begin its move across Marshall Street early Sunday morning, he said.

Among the hurdles as it moved the last few feet into its new location was the curved surface of Marshall Street and a utility box near the intersection of Hamilton and Marshall streets. Prior to Sunday’s move, Garcia said crews laid out wooden blocks of various lengths and widths so the structure can be rolled on the same elevation as it moves across the street. He said the structure will be hydraulically lifted so it can travel over the utility box, and noted the tops of some of the parking meters on the street were also temporarily removed to accommodate the move.

Beginning at 6 a.m. Sunday, Marshall Street was closed to traffic as crews worked toward completing the house’s last leg of the move by the end of the day, said Garcia, who added they may also close the street to traffic Monday in the event the move takes longer.

In the weeks leading up to the move, crews have also been preparing a new foundation for the structure on the lot behind the history museum, said Garcia, who said the structure will remain raised over the foundation for about a week to let the foundation’s concrete cure. Once the house is lowered onto the foundation, it will be fastened to the site with anchor bolts, he said.

Garcia said completing three sets of staircases will be among the finishing touches before the home opens to the public again for tours at the end of June. Mitch Postel, president of the San Mateo County Historical Association, has said previously that the museum is hoping to offer entrance into the history museum, the Lathrop House and a building the association plans to build to display the museum’s carriage collection, with one admission ticket in the future.

Sam Lin, assistant director of the county’s Project Development Unit, said officials are working toward breaking ground on the new County Office Building 3, or COB3, as early as August after other buildings on the block, such as the building where the traffic and small claims courts have been situated at 500 County Center, are demolished. The office building project is slated to begin shortly after the grand opening of a new 36,000-square-foot Public Safety Regional Operations Center and the groundbreaking for a 1,022-spot parking structure to be built just north of an existing county parking garage at 400 Middlefield Road, both of which are slated for July.

Also included in the some $500 million in construction aimed at upgrading aging county facilities are projects to build a new Cordilleras Mental Health Facility, replace the aging San Mateo County animal shelter at Coyote Point and upgrade the San Mateo Medical Center campus and the South San Francisco Health Campus, among other projects. The Board of Supervisors allocated $1.5 million toward the Lathrop House’s relocation, which is being carried out by Truebeck Construction.

Carole Groom, president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors, hoped the Lathrop House’s new location would invite more visitors into the historic home and looked forward to seeing the public interact with all the block has to offer once the construction projects are complete. She was also excited to see county employees be welcomed back on their new campus after construction.

“It really does belong adjacent to the Historical Association,” she said, of the Lathrop House. “This is exciting, to reinvent the whole campus.”

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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