Is that a house double-parked near the highway in Newberg?

You may have been traveling westbound into downtown Newberg and thought to yourself: Is that a house double-parked along the highway?

Indeed, a two-story building that formerly housed George Fox University’s Center for Peace Learning and its campus security office has temporarily found a place on a dead-end section of East Hancock Street.

The Hodson House — built in 1903 and named after the town’s former mortician, Charles Hodson — formerly sat on Meridian Street near the western entrance to the university. It was moved in July to address an ongoing issue at the university.

“We’re expanding parking in the Stevens Center parking lot and the house was purchased by a neighbor who is moving it to Second Street,” Rob Felton, GFU’s chief of staff in the office of the president, said in an email.

Plans originally were to move the building to Second Street, but the process has been delayed.

“Because of issues with permits and Comcast lines, the neighbor couldn't get it moved in May so it is sitting in a temporary location,” Felton said. “The city has been gracious to let it stay in the temporary location until details are ironed out.”

The building now sits elevated on dollies and crib blocks awaiting transportation to its new home on a vacant lot in the 600 block of Second Street, roughly halfway between College and School streets.

As has become custom, the university let it be known that it had a house for sale at a bargain price, the only caveat that it be moved to another location at the buyer’s expense. The university has sold off numerous houses over the years to make room for new buildings and parking lots, including three that traveled west on Sheridan Street in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The university’s most ambitious house moving project came in 2018 when it transported a then-106-year-old three-story house from Villa Road down Fulton Road to Meridian Street, then toward downtown to its final resting place on Sheridan Street. The behemoth Villa House, which the university purchased in 1995, is now home to 11 GFU students.