So what’s the story?

Sandra Fettig had always dreamed about moving back into her childhood home. Now, after months of planning, she’s seeing that dream come true ? sort of.

She’ll be living at the same address, but the beachfront cottage where the 61-year-old administrative assistant spent her childhood has been demolished and was replaced Tuesday with a manufactured home.

The move was no simple feat ? about two dozen workers from four companies oversaw the engineering operation, which involved a 240-ton crane and shut down a stretch of 33rd Street near Marcus Avenue.

Dozens of neighbors gathered to watch as trucks delivered the teal-green house in two separate pieces to the lot Fettig and her husband Jack would soon call home.

Work crews attached a metal frame to the top of the first-floor piece of the home, strapped it in and lifted it above a neighboring home.

Carefully avoiding power lines and other obstacles, four workers then used guide ropes to position the structure atop the newly built foundation.

Workers repeated the process with the second story, dropping it in on top of the first. It took about an hour to get both pieces of the house off the street and into place.

It will take another a month to finish the interior flooring, hook up the utilities and weld the home into the foundation, but the major work is done, the Fettigs said.

The pair purchased the home from Silvercrest in Corona. Sandra Fettig estimated the purchase, move and installation of the home cost about $400,000 ? much cheaper and less time-consuming than having a home custom built on the property.

Sandra Fettig hoped by the time contractor Precision Manufactured Developments Inc. was finished, most people wouldn’t be able to tell it was a manufactured home. A Newport Harbor High graduate, Fettig said the new home would please her 91-year-old father Ernest Schultz, who was sad to see his old cottage disappear.

“He refused to come watch it be torn down,” her husband Jack Fettig said. The three will now live together in the new home, Fettig said.

Pre-manufactured homes are nothing new to the Balboa Peninsula. Contractors with Precision Manufacturer Developments have helped place manufactured homes at the Lido Peninsula Resort and the Cannery. A house just two blocks from the Fettig property was the same model as the home the couple bought.

Still, not everyone in Newport Beach was happy with a prefab home coming to their block.

As the structure was being positioned, a man on a bicycle rode by and told Jack Fettig: “I can’t believe you would take a $1-million property and drop a $200,000 pre-made on it.”

Fettig responded: “Well, it’s my money.” The unidentified critic then cycled off.

Other neighbors who gathered to watch were more welcoming, sharing excited looks as the home teetered high in the air from the top of the crane.

“I makes me light-headed to see them lift this one house over the other,” neighbor Luanne Acierno joked. “I have a million things to do today, but I’m too excited to leave.”

Other neighbors were also stuck near the house moving project, but not by choice. Police had to tow several cars off 33rd Street so the trucks could get into position.

Police were nearly two hours late getting the cars of the street, delaying the move. Otherwise, the engineering feat went well, contractor assistant Judy Senczyszyn said.

“That went really smooth,” she added. “It lined up right with the foundation and we didn’t have any problems.”dpt.24-housemove-2-BPhotoInfoNO1R8DVJ20060524izqluwncKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)A crane lifts the second story of the prefab home into place. dpt.24-housemove-1-CPhotoInfoNO1R8DUM20060524izqlufncPHOTOS BY KENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Project manager David Scodeller guides a manufactured home onto the lot on 33rd Street near Marcus Avenue, in Newport Beach Tuesday.