Rebecca and Joe Jaworski are quite literally raising the bar - and everything else - to living in the historic home on Winnie Street they have owned since 1995. After suffering through water damage caused by Hurricane Ike, the former Galveston mayor and his wife are having their 157 year old home on the corner of Winnie and 11th Street raised.

 “We had around two feet of water inside the house with Ike. And it was a horrific experience. Our children were young, and we were out of our house for almost a year,” shares Rebecca.

 That experience alone was enough to make the couple consider their options, but two additional things contributed to the Jaworski’s decision to raise their home. 

 The first was a New York Times article in August 2021 about a controversy surrounding raising historic homes. It was “specifically about a house that had been raised in historic Charleston, and that for a very long time Charleston's Historic Society had said ‘no’ to raising houses,” Rebecca remembers. 

 “All of a sudden it dawned on preservationists that if houses [couldn’t be] raised, they're going to be lost.”

 The second was witnessing the process of McMillan House Movers raising an immense home around the corner at 523 10th Street. 

“It used to sit on the ground, and it’s a bigger house than my house. That’s what gave me confidence that this was a doable project.” 

 

 That home, owned by Lowell and Mary Louise Stonecipher, is now a bed and breakfast known as The 1874 Guest House. 

 The Jaworski’s two-story home, built in 1866, is not their first historic home. They previously lived in Houston’s Woodland Heights area and are familiar with the challenges and rewards of owning an older residence. 

 The “Great Lift Project,” or GLP as Rebecca calls it, has had its challenges along the way, not the least of which is the cost of such an undertaking. 

 “I will hasten to say it cost more money, took more time, and caused more aggravation than we ever dreamed of.” 

 The couple--their children no longer live in the home--has also had to find other living accommodations during the project. 

 “I was supposed to move out March first or second, but a positive COVID test meant that I couldn't go stay with friends,” Rebecca relates. “Sadly, the gas meter had already been removed for the project before the COVID test, so I got to stay home for ten days with no hot water.” 

 McMillan’s team began the preparation work while she was still in the home, but she moved out once the water and sewer services were cut off.

 “I’m the queen of house surfing. I've been a house guest. I've been a house sitter. Now I'm a cottage guest. I've been out of my house for six months.” 

 “Every step of the way has to be so cautious and so well done. It was very impressive. I cannot say enough good things about George McMillan, his son Jordan and their team Dorian, Jose, Austin, and others.”

 Before the lifting of the house could begin, there was a great amount of preparatory work. Once the ductwork and plumbing were removed from beneath the home, the crew placed large steel support beams underneath in both directions in mid-March, with what Rebecca refers to as “pinpoint precision.” 

 The team used a large mechanism called a uniform jack machine, which is connected by hoses to multiple jacks, and is capable of raising a structure in a unified motion.

 Wood cribbing, positioned in stacked squares resembling Lincoln Logs, were placed at strategic points beneath the house after incremental lifts to support the weight. 

 The painstakingly exact process included its own challenges. “Apparently the ground under our house is a different elevation just about every square inch, confusingly enough,” said Rebecca. “But they completed the initial work and the house was sitting on the new foundation as of July 19.” 

 McMillan has a collection of antique screw jacks similar to the type used in the post 1900 Storm house raisings and utilizes them in his work alongside his state-of-the-art equipment. Wherever the beams of the Jaworski home were at different levels than the support beams stood, one of the old screw jacks was added for support.

 Once the house was raised, the Jaworskis and McMillan’s crew could see small waffle-textured circle imprints on beams from the same type of screw jacks that were used when the home was first raised over 100 years ago after the 1900 Storm. 

 

 The majority of the contents of the house were allowed to remain in the home during the raising process. Everything that hung on walls, and any breakable items, were removed and put into storage, but furnishings and other pieces stayed. 

 Rebecca shares with amazement that stacks of DVDs on the back of a piano and “books stacked on the floor, that were left in place did not appear to shift during the raising of the home, which is a testament to the skill of the crew. 

 “The GLP has two phases. The first was the lift, and that’s now complete. The second phase is what we are now in, and that will be to complete the enclosure of the new ground floor and to build the stairs.” 

 In addition to the couple’s displacement for several months, Rebecca has particularly been saddened by the loss of the garden surrounding the home that had to be removed in order for the work to be done. 

 “I guess it's for the greater good, but it's hard.” 

 The property is also home to one of the island’s Ike tree sculptures by artist Jim Phillips, named “The Monument to Galveston Trees.” The artwork was connected to roots in the ground. 

 “George McMillan and his group cut it off, got it onto a pallet and then they strapped it to the trailer of a truck. They drove it to Bolivar where it is being kept at the McMillan Building Movers Yard.”

 Almost any type of renovation project on the island seems to reveal signs of the past, and the Jaworski house is no exception. Rebecca observed that the process has “churned up plenty of dirt. I kind of walk around and look carefully in the dirt to see what I find. Things just work their way up through the sand.” 

 

 Her finds, mostly small in size, include a piece of crockery, shards of glass, and even lumps of coal which the homeowner prizes as a connection to former residents.

 “I've jokingly called it the ‘museum collection,’ but I'm here to tell you it's smashed up little bits of things. There's nothing remotely museum quality about it, but it is fascinating.” 

 Her research about the lettering on the bottom of a green glass jar she discovered resulted in the conclusion it once held Chow Chow relish made in Great Britain. “Chow Chow is what makes the po’boys from Antone’s [of Houston] so good,” she explained. 

 “Sadly,” she laughs, “there’s still no sign of Laffite’s treasure. That would have helped in this process.” 

 When asked by friends if it wouldn’t have been easier to move rather than go through the expense and stress of the process of raising the house, Rebecca has a simple reply. 

 “The answer is: I love my house, and I love Galveston Island. I'm hoping that the work that we are doing will ensure the survival of our house into the next century.” 

 “Of course,” the devoted homeowner adds with a smile, “if the whole island ends up under water, McMillan moves houses, so maybe we can just drive it over the causeway.”