A 99-year-old villa began its move from Dunedin to East Taieri yesterday.
Dunedin car salesman Colin Dick (70) said he and wife Marlene (69) bought the villa and land in Cannington Rd, Maori Hill, from the Watson family and planned to move into a new three-bedroom brick and tile house on the site in early 2014.
The Dicks called Fulton Hogan in November last year to see if anyone wanted to buy a villa for relocation.
Mosgiel New World bread baker Richard Milmine (39) said he called Fulton Hogan two hours before the Dicks, to ask if there were any villas that could be relocated to his bare 1400sq m lot in Braeside, East Taieri.
Fulton Hogan staff told him it was unusual for villas to be available for removal.
Mr Milmine took the day off work, and his three children had the day off school, yesterday to watch the 1914 villa being relocated.
But the trailer on the moving truck ''broke down'' and the villa was parked in a quarry in Three Mile Hill Rd overnight, he said.
The relocation would continue today, Mr Milmine said.
A winch and a digger would be required to move the villa on to the steep East Taieri site.
In the next seven weeks, builders would remove two walls and install a new kitchen and bathroom.
Former resident Owen Watson (83) said the relocation of the villa was a ''great result''. It was a ''relief'' the house his parents had bought in 1921, and where he was born in 1929, would continue to be lived in.
''I couldn't see it being bulldozed.''
