If you were the project manager for moving the Capen House, what are some of the scheduling challenges you might anticipate with this project based upon your network diagram? How would you ensure project success? Once occupied by one of Winter Park, Florida’s earliest residents, James Seymour Capen, the majestic Capen House, originally built in 1885, was set to be demolished so buyers could build on its land. Luckily, its new owners decided to give preservationists, who were eager to see the home saved, time to create a plan and raise funds to move the historic house across Lake Osceola. To save the 200-ton historic house, the group of preservationists moved it across the lake in two separate pieces, to where it could rest next to the Albin Polasek Museum.

To accomplish this construction feat, contractor Frank Roark acted almost as a conductor of a symphony composed of moving, interdependent parts. Each part of this seemingly impossible project had to be broken down into small, achievable tasks and sequenced in a way that made logical sense. During a 2013 radio interview with Mr. Roark, the project’s chief contractor described the intricacies of the complex project by stating that there were “complicating, challenging factors that add to the excitement and fun of the whole thing.”

During the interview, Mr. Roark described the scope of the project work in great detail. He started by explaining how the team would assemble a barge large enough to transport the house. Additionally, he discussed the preparation of the historic Capen House along with its original fixtures:

“Well, what we do is we have to assemble the barge, the barge is big, it’s going to have to be 40 feet by 60 feet and so you can’t just come up with a 40 foot by 60 foot barge, truck it into town, and roll it to the dock. So the way it’s done is the barge is comprised of individual smaller barges that are typically 10 feet wide and 20 or 40 feet long. Those are brought in on flatbed trucks brought down onto the property, dragged down onto the lake into the water, and then another piece and another piece. Those pieces are pinned together to form a large raft. And you can keep adding those individual pieces until you get a large barge as long as you need to carry the weight of a house. The way that the house is calculated and by knowing what it’s made out of and the sizes, and so, the barge is assembled and then a couple of small motor boats, one in the front and one in the back, pull and push it slowly across the lake over to where the house is currently located. It comes up to the shore and then a ramp is built from the barge up onto the shore, obviously a strong ramp. Then the house has to be cut into two pieces because the lot is very narrow down by the lake and the constraints of some existing trees and another building makes it such that the house would not fit between them in one piece. So we have to cut the house in half into two pieces, and we will move each piece one at a time up on wheeled dollies, roll it down to the lake, roll it over the ramp, onto the barge, and then the barge will be motored across the lake where each half will be brought to its eventual resting place. That process is repeated for the second half.”