Before & After
From ‘blowing in the wind’ to ‘Bahamas registered building #56′
Your eyes do not deceive you. The building on the left, situated in Eleuthera, Bahamas, is, indeed, leaning to the left. What’s more, when the wind blows hard in the other direction the building would lean to the right. But as Todd Vendituoli, of Todd Vendituoli Construction, the man responsible for this remarkable and commendable transformation cheerfully points out, it stayed up. Over the years Todd has built a fair number of Post and Beam homes and, he tells us, he knew by looking at the construction that this one was probably built by English shipwrights due to the joinery and Roman numerals used to designate the parts. That meant, as far as Todd was concerned, it could be raised, i.e. lifted off the ground, and fixed. Todd attributes his extreme version of recycling to his heritage. As he says “New Englanders hate wasting a perfectly good building, that Puritan thing!’
Todd made an offer for the building which was accepted with the sort of enthusiasm that tends to indicate doubts about the mental health of the customer. Then it was a simple matter of lifting the entire building onto a series of 30 ton jacks, rebuilding the foundations and letting it back down with walls now straightened and a secure foundation. Well we say ‘simply’ but we suspect it was very far from simple.
Our hero had the building classified with the Bahamian Government as a Historical Property- #56 in the whole of the Bahamas and proceeded to finish off the entire building. We can only wonder as to the work and red tape involved but the result? Oh the result!
And if you want to know the details, the trials and tribulations of the man who saved and transformed such a wonderful building you are in luck – its all in his blog. Our heartfelt thanks to Todd for sharing this with us. And Todd, is it OK if we call round for drinks? We’ll bring a bottle or two!