I know it's only been 3 years since the elephant house renovation was completed, but I keep forgetting things about the previous house (e.g. the old entrance shown in the photo or the brick wall at the front)!
They stayed at the zoo, I believe the house was built in two parts allowing room for the elephants and transferred them to the new half whil building the second bit.
Yes they did rebuild the house, but the foot print of the new house is twice the size of the old one, thus allowing them to build the back half (towards the carpark first). Similar construction plan to RoRA, they built phase one adjacent to the old so the animals could stay on-site, then if they were to build phase two all the animals would move into phase 1.
