HADLEY — An 80-year-old home at the southwestern edge of the University of Massachusetts campus will be moved from 164 Sunset Ave. to a Hadley site next month.
Amherst developer Barry Roberts, who will be constructing a 17-unit townhouse development at the corner of Sunset and Fearing streets, across from the Southwest Area of UMass, told the Select Board last week that the relocation of the two-story home will begin Aug. 9 at 10 p.m.
A map of the route for the eight-hour move shows the home first heading north toward Massachusetts Avenue, then entering Hadley via North Hadley Road, before turning south on North Hadley Road, continuing past the UMass Hadley Farm and the intersection of Rocky Hill Road, to its final destination at 22 North Maple St. That site is just north of the Elaine Center at Hadley nursing home.
The foundation is already in place at the new location for the home, whose first occupants, based on Amherst property records, were W. Burnet and Esther Easton. W. Burnet Easton Jr. was the director of religious activities at the Massachusetts Agricultural College.
Roberts said that the home’s move has to begin late at night as required by Eversource.
He will distribute flyers to homes along the route, and expects the work to complete well before 6 a.m. the following day.
Roberts moved a similar home from Amherst College last summer, and has experience moving other homes, and called this one “a fairly simply move.”
Roberts noted some spectators set up lawn chairs in their yards on Northampton Road when the home was moved overnight last year, though he isn’t sure whether something similar will happen in Hadley.
“Maybe the horses will be out watching at the horse farm,” Roberts said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
