Own your moorage with this charming floating home studio, lovingly rebuilt in 2012 with Craftsman wood-detailing. Next to the bike trail, Gas Works Park, and minutes from U.W.
Listed by Mary Durkan • Windermere Real Estate Co.
A turnkey floating home with a good location, this spacious house has two bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, and a deck off the living room and both bedrooms. There's also a main-level laundry room.
A cool floating home remodeled in 2014 has industrial chic materials like stainless steel, as well as large windows in the living area to fill the space with light. An open concept plan encourages easy entertaining, with a loft space perfect for an added sleeping space or office, and a deck on the second level allows for ample views and more BBQ space.
But after ferries, and mountains, and the Space Needle and some of our other more distinctive public buildings, floating homes are definitely up there as a Seattle symbol.
It's odd, given that the city neither invented nor perfected the housing style, but as the relatively young Seattle grew, floating homes started popping up along its many shores.
Like the "Seattle style" in architecture, you can thank the city's burgeoning timber industry, which resulted in a number of workers skilled in woodwork who were eager to save what money they could. And though storms often threatened the viability of the architecture, by the 1880s Seattle's central waterfront was home to many shabby floating homes anchored or tethered by the pier, next to other seasonal workers who stayed aboard their houseboats.
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So how did the reputation of floating homes flow from hard-scrabble workers to a Seattle luxury? A rather classic Seattle battle between those scraping by and more affluent homeowners.
As Seattle's waterways became less purely for business and shipping, getting cleaned up and more attractive as options for those who wanted to take a swim, disgruntled landowners started battling floating home dwellers. Their goal was to secure potential moorage and dock locations, but also combat the houseboats' increasing disreputable character as home to ne'er-do-wells and those disenfranchised by the Depression.
At the time, there were many, many more houseboats than the city currently touts: By the 1920s, the population peaked with approximately 2,500 floating homes across Seattle's various waterways.
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As Lake Union water quality continued to improve over the decades, the battle waged on, with several floating home residents being evicted to accommodate new construction by the 1950s and '60s.
That period helped enshrine many of the houseboats that we now see dotting our shores, with their own unique twist on the then-booming Northwest style.
"They tried to use elements of buildings designed for uneven sites and then adapt them to a flat raft," local architect and University of Washington professor David Miller said in an interview in 2017. "I think as a consequence they're kind of weird, eclectice, idiosyncratic versions of the Northwest style."
Seattle's changing a lot these days (pictured above: A two-bedroom house built in 1900 next to a modern three-bedroom built in 2015 on NW 61st Street in Ballard). But the quintessential "Seattle style" has had some mainstays over the years. (Genna Martin, seattlepi.com)GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM
According to Miller: "I would say that the longhouse in particular, which was built with timber frames and then infilled iwth cedar planks that type of structure was you could see that in early modern post and beam buildings. You have columns roof isn’t supported by wall, supported by post and beam."
KEVIN MORRIS/seattlepi.com file photo
Early white settlers lived in log cabins, typically one-bedroom ones. Though we've come a far way since then, the main philosophies still apply: A connection between the outdoors and the indoors, and a whole lot of wood. Courtesy Eric Slawson/Keller Williams Realty
The Albin house on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill, pictured May 18, 1914, is a good example of the ornate and complex styles that sprung up on the hill thanks to all the new money flowing in. City of Seattle Municipal Archive
The "Seattle box" style was a twist on the box style houses in the country at the time, with more windows, and rooms that were less deep (in order to keep its inhabitants close to the windows).
Craftsman helped grow the city's style in the early 1900s, gaining popularity from the plan and pattern books that flourished during a Seattle boom. Vista Estate Imaging, Courtesy Mary Mathison, Coldwell Banker Bain
Dutch Colonials gained steam around the 1920s, but aren't as prevalent in Seattle. During this period revival styles were flourishing. Courtesy Edward Krigsman/Windermere Real Estate
Tudors, similarly, flourished during the 1930s, though by then Seattle was in the weeds of the Depression. By 1932 building permits had dropped by 95 percent and our own chapter of "Hooverville" (the shanties that sprung up of displaced people) became what is possibly Seattle's first integrated neighborhood. Claudia Groom
"Hoovervilles," a sarcastic tribute to the president who was in power when the Great Depression started, sprang up in major metros across the country and Seattle was no different. Though the community was torched twice, it survived to the beginning of World War II, and boasted about 632 men and 7 women during one census counting. American Stock Archive/Getty Images
The post-war boom brought housebuilding back up and at 'em, with more emphasis on the suburbs (thanks to "white flight" and veterans returning home and looking for cheap housing). Cape Cod (pictured above) and ranch styles started springing up as still undeveloped areas were mostly filled in. Carol McElroy/Windermere Real Estate
With the 1950s came the mid-century Moderns, a big one for Seattle. Paul Thiry, John Yeon, Pietro Belluschi, and C.E. Pratt helped usher in a "more grounded, personally reflective, and localized Modernism," according to Miller. William Feemster/Image Arts Photography
As Thiry himself put the movement: "Maybe not a 'machine for living' ... but rather as a building that would better fit a way of life, that would fit the land, exploit the vast panoramas of waterways and mountains that make the Northwest, that would enliven the gray days of the winter and share the exterior country in Summer." Courtesy Bruce Phares and Mark Besta, Windermere Real Estate
A major theme in Seattle's architecture (and something that became particularly strong with the Modernist movement) is connecting the outdoors to the indoors, typically through a lot of windows (the better to soak up that precious Vitamin D with) and open air spaces, for when our wonderful summers roll through. Michael Walmsley/Windermere
Post-Modernism is a fad that "relatively passed Seattle by," according to Miller. Though some would try (like the Fifth and Jackson Building, pictured here) something about the style didn't stick to Seattle. Dan DeLong/Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Although the new Seattle Central Library is an example of Post-Modernism, so it could've been a post-Boeing-bust problem of funds. During the 1970s and 80s Seattle's market was in major recovery, which greatly affected the housing market. (During 1974, you could buy a three-bedroom with Puget Sounds and Cascades views on Queen Anne Hill for $20,000, or around $117,000 today.) Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A classic Seattle floating home that makes Portage Bay your yard. Floating homes and houseboats have been a part of Seattle's architectural landscape since around 1880s, when millworkers built shanties and secured them to whatever mooring was available. They've survived more than a few attempts to get rid of them. But floating homes have also seen a major decrease since the 1920s when they were about 2,500 strong (there's now a few hundred).
HD Estates
On floating homes and houseboats' modern style: "They tried to use elements of buildings designed for uneven sites and then adapt them to a flat raft...I think as a consequence they're kind of weird, eclectice, idiosyncratic versions of the Northwest style."
Since the late 1990s, Seattle's main focus has been on "modern hybrids," like this one designed by Milton Stricker, an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright. As the listing described it, this home "combines the best of warm Northwest contemporary styling and open mid-century design, yet has appropriate updates for today's lifestyle."
Courtesy Realogics Sotheby's International Realty
This Northwest contemporary with plenty of windows and doors that help connect residents to the outside (in this case Lake Washington beach access).
Listing provided courtesy of Sheri Putzke, Windermere Real Estate
It wouldn't be until 1968 that the city council would release a comprehensive ordinance governing new construction and remodels for the floating home community -- both a boon to the oft-looked-down-upon community, as well as a standard that cut the dwindling community even further with standards that were too costly for many homeowners.
By 1970 the total number of houseboats dropped to just about 450, though its reputation would rise. As History Link notes, although the "Lake Union colony continued to shrink, its public profile -- as an oasis of tolerance -- had gained traction over the years." Dovetailing from its origins as a spot for the disenfranchised (both monetarily and politically; the community reportedly housed a number of Wobblies during their peak influence), the ability to rent a house boat attracted many a creative type in the 1960s.
It was this lifestyle that would be codified by 1970s initiative to better protect and more responsibly build Seattle's waterfront. And it would be solidified when "Sleepless" dropped, ensuring the house featured in the film would become a tourist destination.
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As Lake Union has become a more functional and attractive centerpiece for the city, the floating homes have also received some stability; they were listed as an established "preferred" use of shorelines in 1987.
Even with the city limiting floating home applications to those built before July 2014, the few hundred floating houses in Seattle continue to be an attractive option in Seattle's housing market, with a variety of types of property, styles and price points to select.
To see more of what Seattle's floating home community has to offer, click through the slideshow above to see some options listed now.
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This article was first published on March 25, 2019.
