This is one of the most extravagant mobile homes in history. John Stevenson was an executive in the New Castle Nail and Wire Company, which obviously brought him a lot of money. He hired New Castle’s own Sydney Foulk to design this extravagant Romanesque house, which cost $100,000 to build in 1894.
Not long after, he came back from a trip to Europe to find that the company had been absorbed by United States Steel, and there was no place for him in the new organization. He was so angry he stomped out of New Castle—and took his house with him, in kit form, every stone labeled for reassembly, on 55 railcars. It cost another $100,000 to move the house, but he showed them.
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