A Journey of a Houseboat

 

A Journey of a Houseboat.

Let's start with some before and after photos.  In 2019, Carpe Diem (just left of the little red houseboat) was purchased for around $230,000 in a moorage slip that is owned as opposed to leased.  She measured 36x13.7 and had a FOWR plaque from the city.  FOWR stands for Floating On Water Residence.  These are plaques issued to houseboats in 2014 that permits residency on Lake Union.  

                                                    Carpe Diem is to the left of the red houseboat.

Little Red is still there, but Blatto replaced Carpe Diem.

Permits issued for over water construction are valid for 5 years per Shoreline Management codes in Seattle.  From beginning to end, it takes approximately 2 years to build a houseboat.  Sometimes longer during say a pandemic.

I first met Ben Murphy in 2020.  Ben is a very talented carpenter/wood worker and he calls me up one day and says he thinks he wants to buy a houseboat.  He had been working on one and found it to be all very interesting especially coming from his background of building tree houses (Wild Tree Wood Works).

Life got busy, as it does, and I didn't hear from Ben until 2023.  He asked if I wanted to check out the new houseboat he's building with GO'C architect.  It's almost finished and before it takes the lake launch, to come check it out.  I zoomed over to Ballard to check it out. The attention to detail is impeccable. 

In the winter of 2024, Blatto was carefully lowered and tugged into place to the slip in North Lake Union.  Contrary to the name, most houseboats don't have propulsion or motors.  Some older houseboats might still have navigational instruments, but when you see a houseboat in the middle of the lake, it's a bright yellow tugboat assisting it in place.

It's quite astonishing how you can transform an old tired Carpe Diem to a highly engineered masterpiece like Blatto.  When you replace a houseboat, measurements of your new build are required to be the same.  The volume is another story.  A houseboat's roofline can be 18' high from the top of the lake.  Since Carpe Diem was only one story, Blatto was able to maximize the height thus square footage.

It takes patience, creativity, and a lot of engineering to build a houseboat.  Blatto is featured in the newest Dwell Magazine edition and I am feeling very proud of my friend Ben for his mad contracting skills.

Living simply is a way of life.  It's a way to appreciate all you need.  And I think houseboat livin' embodies this for a lot of folks who choose to live this way. 

#SellingonLandandLakes  #mollycartwrighthomes