Gehry guest house on the move

May 20, 2009

From the Bulletin Today

The Winton guest house, a relatively small but highly acclaimed Lake Minnetonka guest house designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, whose works include the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, is on the move. The house's new home eventually will be the university's Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna., Minn.

At 12:30 p.m. today (May 20, 2009) the bedroom made of Minnesota dolomite limestone, which has already been loaded onto a hydraulic dolly, will be moved from the original site on top of a hill on Kirt Woodhouse’s property to the roadside below. Woodhouse donated the guest house to St. Thomas last year.

Larry Stubbs, owner of Stubbs Building and House Movers, the company in charge of moving the house, estimates that the move down the hill will take about two hours.

The transport of all eight segments of the home will be trucked either individually or in pairs on separate dollies in six trips beginning next week and continuing through the end of June 2009.

Tentative schedule, which is weather permitting, is:

• Next week: chimney and upper sleeping loft. These segments were moved recently from their original site on Woodhouse’s property to the Stubbs’ facility in Long Lake.
• First week in June: fireplace room.
• First or second week in June: Minnesota dolomite limestone bedroom and black sheath-metal bedroom.
• Second week in June: kitchen.
• Third week in June: living room.
• Fourth week in June: living room’s pyramid tower.
  Stubbs Building and House Movers began work on the project in July last year, removing dirt from beneath the house and supporting its various sections with large beams.

Read the original Bulletin Today story on the Winton guest house here.