The flier was innocuous.

The Pennsylvania Turn- pike Commission invited residents of North Versailles' Oak Hill section to an open house on the Mon Fayette Expressway.

Beverly Koch figured she'd go, even though she had previously studied the proposed alignment of the highway and knew it was supposed to run below her house.

The commission posted maps at the open house that showed a new road design. A neighbor, who had figured out the key on the map before Mrs. Koch did, told her the news: Her house was slated to be demolished.

The information devastated her.

In December 2004, the Federal Highway Administration gave its approval to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to build the Mon Fayette Expressway. During the year and three months since then, turnpike engineers redesigned the road's path through North Versailles.

The new drawings for the road show a different configuration for the interchange in North Versailles. The new plan calls for taking 41 houses, 13 of which are unoccupied, and five businesses. The old plan was to demolish 18 homes and six businesses.

The rationale given for the changes was that it makes for a simpler interchange with room for the lane changes associated with on- and off-ramps. It also will have less of an impact on East Pittsburgh-McKeesport Boulevard and the Tri-Boro Expressway, according to the turnpike commission.

"This greatly improves the interchange and it costs less," said Tom Fox, the spokesman for the Turnpike Commission.

Representatives of the Turnpike Commission had met with the North Versailles board of commissioners nearly half a year ago about the possible changes, but Commissioner Dennis Dull said the turnpike representatives had been dismissive about the plan that the commission is currently proposing.

"They told us not to say anything because this would be the plan they probably wouldn't use," Mr. Dull said. He said he was told it would be too expensive to be a viable plan. Now he's dealing with constituents who are faced with displacement because of this plan that the commission had dismissed.

Mrs. Koch said she shouldn't have to give up her home so that people can drive more quickly from West Virginia to Pittsburgh.

"I don't know what we're going to do. I really can't even think about it. The fact of trying to move all my stuff -- I'm a pack rat. It's not the money, it's just, if I have to go, I want to find someplace comparable," Mrs. Koch said.

There really is no place comparable for Mrs. Koch. She was born in her house and, other than the 18 months she and her husband lived in an apartment when they were first married, she has lived there all her life. She raised her daughters in the house, and her sisters still gather there for the holidays.

Just since 1980, when she moved back in after her mother's death, Mrs. Koch, 50, and her husband, Rick Koch, 53, have added a new family room, a garage, two bedrooms and a patio. They also remodeled the kitchen. When they bought a new roof, Rick Koch chose the 35-year warranty. He still has 15 years to go.

He is particularly aggravated that his house isn't even going to be taken for the roadway, but instead will be part of the slope to the roadway. Mr. Koch envisions a future in which a pine tree and some crown vetch are growing where his house used to be.

It has taken Mrs. Koch 26 years for the myrtle that she planted on her back hill to grow in just right. The one thing that can never be replaced is the block of concrete next to the side gate that Mrs. Koch stepped in while it was still wet. Judging from the size of her footprint, that concrete was poured about 48 years ago.

"This is where we want to be. This is where we want to stay," she said.

It's a neighborhood that is filled with people who have been there all their lives.

The Harpers practically have a family compound there. Margaret Harper, 79, the family matriarch, lives on Versailles Avenue with her grown son, Ed. Her other son, Jim, lives up the hill on Spring Street in a home he shares with his wife, Sharon. Across the street from Margaret Harper's house is the one owned by Donna Harper, Jim's ex-wife. Jim and Donna Harper bought that house in 1975 and raised their two sons in it.

Margaret Harper bought her house in 1963 with her late husband, Edwin. They had two boys and a daughter and had spent years moving from rental to rental until they found the house to buy on Oak Hill. Now, 43 years later, the entire neighborhood calls Mrs. Harper "Bubba" as if she was the grandmother to them all.

Jim Harper said when the Tri-Boro Expressway was built, all of the homes they had rented when he was a young boy were demolished to make way for that roadway.

Now the homes of both Donna Harper, 58, and Margaret Harper are slated to be taken for the new road.

Margaret Harper remodeled her kitchen a few years ago. She said the new hardwood floor is easy to keep clean and the fancy pantry closet, with shelves that swing out to expose more shelves in the back, are perfect for her canned goods. The wall going up her stairs is so thick with the photos of her children and grandchildren as they age that the great-grandchildren are being fit into the remaining spaces at the bottom.

Jim Harper said his mother had a heart attack about four months ago, and that they wish her a long and happy life. They just hope the Turnpike Commission takes even longer to get to North Versailles.

The Harpers don't have much time.

Donna Harper said she was told by a turnpike representative the commission wanted all of the homes purchased and empty by 2008.

"This hill used to be loaded with houses," Donna Harper said. "In two years there's really going to be nothing."

Every home that's slated for demolition has its own history.

Across First Street and down the hill a little from the Koch home is the new modular home built by Maryanne Fetsick and her husband in October of 2004. Her husband died in July. Mrs. Fetsick's grown daughter, Linda Green, lives a block away on Versailles Avenue with her own two children. Ms. Green's house is also in the path of the expressway.

Mrs. Koch is afraid that any move will lose her the seat she won on the East Allegheny school board because of the slim likelihood of finding a suitable house in the narrow confines of her district. Mrs. Fetsick is the North Versailles tax collector and must live in the municipality to keep her job.

Mr. Koch said he expects the appraisers from the turnpike to start looking at the houses in his neighborhood at Christmas. He's using the brochure handed out by the turnpike commission that said the acquisitions would begin in late 2006 as his guide.

Outside of his house, Mr. Koch looks at the front slope that he built himself as a young man, killing three wheel barrows by hauling 16 tons of river rock up the hill and then pouring it into place.

He shakes his head, both when he thinks of moving that rock, which was delivered in three dump trucks, and when he thinks of moving away from it. His next door neighbors' house will be spared. He thinks the shed he just bought last year will also be out of the bulldozer's path.

"Maybe we can live in the shed," he said.