100-year-old colony house takes a ride through downtown Atascadero

Traffic in downtown Atascadero was slower on Tuesday night for an unusual reason — a 103-year-old house was coming through.

The Atascadero Historical Society transported the structure — known as a "colony home" — from a hotel construction site to the area where a local museum is taking shape.

Madonna Enterprises is building a 120-room hotel on the old Annex property near El Camino Real and Del Rio Road. The house, which was donated to the historical society six or seven years ago, was situated on the construction site and needed to be moved.

Colony homes are those built between 1914 and 1924, when E.G. Lewis' original Atascadero colony was taking shape, said Jim Wilkins, president of the historical society.

The house that was moved is thought to have been built in 1915, he said. The historical society uses another colony house on Lewis Avenue near the Sunken Gardens as a museum.

The move took place about 9:30 p.m., when the home was put on wheels and transported down El Camino Real and through the heart of downtown Atascadero.

"A couple tight spots, but we made it through," Wilkins said.

The whole process took an hour and cost about $25,000, which the historical society earned through fundraising, he said.

The structure's new home is a 2.88-acre property between the Atascadero Library and Highway 41, where the historical society is planning a Colony Heritage Center to showcase the city's history.

"It's kind of where the original tent city was in Mr. Lewis's time," Wilkins said.

The historical society acquired the property using money left to the organization in a trust. An old Boy Scout cabin was also moved to the site from its home near the Atascadero Unified School District office in July 2015.

The historical society plans to build a small campus and use the restored structures as museums, Wilkins said.

To donate or learn more about the historical society's plans, visit atascaderohistoricalsociety.org or call 805-466-8341.