In a rare moment where life imitates fiction, the Seattle home erroneously believed to be the inspiration for the movie Up is apparently going to be saved, and will float away – not with balloons as in the film – but on a barge.
OPAL Community Land Trust, an organization that provides affordable housing on Orcas Island near Seattle said that it wants to move the house one block to a ship canal, sail it to the island, then restore and sell it. But it needs $200,000 by 15 September to do so. At a press conference announcing the plan OPAL officials said they are starting a campaign to raise the money, which will go toward the costs of moving and renovating the home.
The 100-year-old cottage – first made famous when its owner, Edith Macefield, refused to sell as a towering shopping center rose around it – has fallen into disrepair and was on the verge of being torn down.
In a final attempt to save the house, the North Carolina bank that owns the tiny Seattle bungalow has been seeking to donate it to someone willing to move it, and then sell the land. Seattle realtor Paul Thomas, retained to handle the donation and sale, said he received five proposals for moving the home and considered OPAL’s to be “head and shoulders above the rest”.
Thomas said the organization has been working for more than a month on how it will move the home. OPAL executives said they hope to raise enough money to move the house sometime in the fall. They did not say what would happen if they were unable to come up with the $200,000.
The house is remarkably similar to the house in Up, an animated film about an elderly man who refuses to move as a giant building rises around it on three sides.
Because of these similarities and the story of Macefield – who died in 2008 – a publicist tied balloons on the house as a promotion for the 2009 movie, leading to the widespread assumption that the house was the motivation for the film. But production on the movie began years before Macefield’s story became news and executives from Pixar, which made the movie, have said there is no connection.
Originally the bank tried to sell the house but gave up after several potential buyers were unable to get permits from the city. In June, Thomas said the house would be torn down unless someone came up with a viable plan for moving it.
Now a plan has emerged – one that can give the house a Hollywood ending.
