The last time a farmhouse soared this high, it was on its way out of Kansas.

It wasn’t a twister, though, that was carrying away the top of Dan and Shalene McClain’s 19th-century white frame abode. It was a crane.

The McClains had the vacant, two-story home moved to Enon Valley last week from Bessemer, where it had sat ever since one of Shalene’s ancestors built it shortly after the Civil War. To facilitate the relocation, Stein House Movers of Cortland, Ohio, separated the building into four pieces.

With the help of a rented crane from T. Bruce Campbell of West Middlesex and its operator, Jimmy Lombardo of New Castle, the pieces were put back together.

Just like when Dorothy’s house took off for Oz, the weather wasn’t particularly cheerful. Cold, gray skies replaced the warm, powder blue ones of last week’s moving day, and instead of the film’s funnel cloud, wisps of snow that occasionally grew to full-fledged flurries churned through the air.

“This is mild,” Lombardo said of the conditions. “We do a lot of stuff like this, and we’ve done it in worse. Wind is the only factor you have to worry about.”

Early Wednesday, the four pieces sat side by side on steel beams in a field off Weatherspoon Road. This had been the Henderson farm until last year, when the McClains bought it from Harold Henderson. Henderson, a retired music minister, still lives in the property’s existing home, and the McClains had planned to build a house of their own across the road — until falling in love with Shalene’s family homestead.

Shalene’s great-uncle owned the building, but because he was planning on tearing it down anyway, he agreed to let his niece and her husband take it away.

Despite temperatures in the mid-30s, Henderson strolled over from his house to watch the activity. He wasn’t about to miss a rare bit of excitement in this perennially pastoral place.

“Nothing ever happens up here,” he laughed.

Dan McClain arrived about 7:30 a.m. Wednesday to crawl under the home’s second story and remove a few boards that had been added to provide extra support during the move from Bessemer. Later, he was atop the first-floor segment, removing tarps.

After just over an hour of prep work, Lombardo turned his crane toward a waiting steel beam, and cables were attached from each end of it to the crane’s hook. The beam then was lifted over top the second floor, and more cables were attached from its bottom side to an I-beam running the length of the house’s roof.

The home’s upper floor sat perpendicular to the first, and had to be turned as it was lifted. Workers standing atop the first floor pushed on one corner as it came to them, while two more Stein employees on the ground used guide wires to pull another side toward them.

Once turned, the second floor glided over the first until it was nearly in place. At that point, the workers climbed through its windows, lifting and walking the dangling structure the final few feet until it could be lowered.

To make sure the house stays together, Dan McClain explained, the studs would be spliced with 2-by-4s. Still, even after assembly, the house won’t be stationary. A foundation remains to be dug, after which the building will be slid over the hole, and blocks built up to the frame.