See
the chicken wire that houseboat residents wrap around their trees? Why
do they do this? To protect them from the beavers that still glide through
Lake Union.
If
you're wondering, the first official record of houseboats on Lake Union
is a reference in Polk's Seattle Directory, 1905. It lists lists a Rodney
Allaback, with the address: "boathouse, Lake Union."
Local
houseboater Art Holder uses old fire hoses as pneumatic jacks to raise
houseboats which require new stringers. "Stringers" are the
giant beams that lie horizontally on log floats to support houseboat
floors.
Cat
fish once offered a free lunch to those fishing in Lake Union.
The
cast of characters living afloat has included a wide range of residents:
A world-famous wine authority, the author of All I Really Need to
Know I Learned in Kindergarten, a former City Councilman, the physician/inventor
whose Teflon shunt greatly expanded the number of times patients could
tolerate the use of the artificial kidney machine.
The
houseboats moored within 150 feet of the 1907 Lake Union shoreline are
actually on owned real estate. Local legislators snuck a bill through
the Legislature that required anyone owning property on Lake Union to
buy the adjacent underwater property. The subsequent one million dollars
funded the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition on the University of
Washington campus.
The
hospitality house from that 1909 Exposition, moored on Portage Bay,
is reputed to be the oldest surviving houseboat in Seattle.
How
many houseboats are there? In the late 1930s over 2,000 houseboats floated
on Seattle’s lakes and water ways; the first new dock in over 25
years will increase their number from 487 to 495.
How
do houseboats stay afloat? Rotationally molded polyurethane barrels,
used for shipping liquids, are recycled by flotation expert George Johnston
to raise or level houseboats. While many vintage homes float on cedar
logs dating back to the early 1900s, over time the logs lose some of
their bouyancy, homes become larger, or new occupants with different
furniture arrangements require added flotation and balance.
Floating
home owners pay personal property taxes on their dwellings. Moorage
or property owners pay real estate taxes as well as a state lease fee
for sites in land leased from the state.
In
1914 a water-soaked earthen coffer dam, built during construction of
the Ballard locks, collapsed and Lake Union dropped ten feet in a 24
hour period. Over 200 houseboats either hung suspended from the shoreline
or dropped onto the exposed lake bottom.
