The 137-year-old Morris Marks House, a rare downtown Portland example of Italianate architecture, crawled in two giant, separate pieces through downtown Portland today. Starting at 10 a.m., it traveled about ten city blocks from its original location at 1134 S.W. 12 Ave., and it then traveled to PSU's campus where the house will park for the night.

Tomorrow at 6 a.m., the house will continue southwest, crossing over I-405, and land at its new destination in a field at S.W. Grant St. and S.W. Broadway Dr. The house will have the potential to be used for both commercial and residential space.

Workers of Oxbo Mega Transport Solutions, a Portland firm that moves large equipment, said the entire operation has gone well so far without any unexpected incidents. They were concerned about rain creating muddy issues when the house traveled over grass, but the rain held off for most of the day.

The building's owners are Karen Karlsson and Rick Michaelson. Karlsson said it cost about $440,000 to move the house and just over a dollar to buy it. She hopes the building will be completely renovated and remodeled in a year.

The house was designed by Warren Williams, a prolific Portland architect whose work includes The Old Church and several cast-iron commercial buildings that still stand in Old Town. The first owner was Morris Marks, a Polish shoe merchant.

A second, larger Morris Marks house, designed by the same architect and built in 1882, now sits at 1501 S.W. Harrison St. That house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; the Morris Marks House being moved is not.

Watch live as a 137-year-old house is carefully moved through downtown Portland. The house is being cut in half and moved to a vacant lot near the Interstate 405 interchange at Southwest Broadway and Sixth Avenue. Read more: http://bit.ly/2fXQ1Kj Posted by The Oregonian on Saturday, September 30, 2017

--Mark Graves and Elliot Njus