Little House on the Levee

It's a quiet night at the St. Paul Yacht Club along the Mississippi River. A crisp September breeze cuts through the harbor across from downtown St. Paul, brushing the bevy of boats docked there. Most of them are dark tonight, their owners all but done with the summer boating season. There's a light on in Dirk Kramer's houseboat, the "Capo di Capo," where Kramer and his neighbor from one boat down, Dan Beers, enjoy the evening.

There's a splash, and Kramer heads out to the back porch. While it's not uncommon for fish to jump back here, or birds and beavers to swim by, tonight the guest is a little larger. A man--possibly drunk, possibly homeless--has jumped into the murky river and is dog paddling toward the boat. With a gentle but insistent shout, Kramer explains that this is private property and encourages the visitor to swim back to the shore before he calls the police. After watching to make sure the man makes it back to the bank (otherwise, he'd have had to jump in after him) Kramer comes back into his living room/bedroom/dining room/kitchen.

"That's something different," Kramer says, shaking his head. Beers laughs and adds, "It's a boarding party!"

Both Kramer and Beers are new houseboaters. Each bought his boat last spring. Each has spent the summer designing and rehabbing, with different levels of completion. Each is planning to spend the coming winter in his new home, braving the cold of a Minnesota winter on the water--or, more accurately, on the ice.

Kramer, a craftsman by trade, calls his boat "a carpenter's dream." He has grand plans for rehabbing the 48-foot vessel while maintaining its history--custom-made by the Browning Tank Company in 1954, it served on Lake Minnetonka first as an icebreaker, then as a water taxi. Fascinated by the challenge of making such a small space both functional and comfortable, Kramer excitedly describes his vision: arched windows and skylights for more light and better ventilation; exposed wooden ceiling beams; hardwood instead of paint and paneling; a new kitchen, bathroom, sleeping loft. For now, the one-room home is sparse but livable.

Winter, of course, may be a whole different adventure. Most houseboats aren't terribly well insulated, and, as yet, Kramer hasn't completely figured out a heating plan. "Let's just say I need to look into heat sources," he says with a laugh. "I'm starting to think about that more often as the mornings chill down. Dan's more worried about me. He says, 'You're going to freeze.'" But Kramer, who also works as a wilderness guide, stresses that he's grown accustomed to sleeping in the cold after his many winter camping trips.

Beers, on the other hand, has spent considerable time getting his boat ready for winter and installing two furnaces and insulated glass. He's more worried about the power going out or the water lines freezing. "I wouldn't recommend buying a houseboat if you're not good with your hands," he cautions.

Nationwide, the houseboating industry is growing, according to Brady Kay, assistant editor of Houseboat Magazine. This year, he estimates, about 3,000 new houseboats will be manufactured, compared to less than 2,000 in 1990. While he says there are about 100,000 houseboaters in the United States, only about five percent are "liveaboards," as opposed to short-term vacationers. That number, however, may start to increase as the boats become nicer and more comfortable to live on.

Of the 175 boats at the St. Paul Yacht Club, about 40 percent are houseboats, says Don Gussler, manager of the marina, a nonprofit member-owned cooperative. There are, however, only 25 year-round liveaboards, the maximum allowed by the city of St. Paul because of infrastructure constraints. The yacht club, established in 1912, has been home to houseboats for decades, dating back to the 1930s, Gussler says, when the Mayo brothers had a large barge houseboat they'd use for entertaining.

"For many it is a summer cabin, without having to cut the grass," he says. But winter is another story. Gussler, who has rehabbed houseboats but has never lived on one for a long time, says there are a variety of reasons why people choose to live on the watercrafts. Some are drawn by the romance of the river--the sunsets and the mesmerizing movement of the water--or the radical life change living on a boat brings. Others are looking for a cheap living arrangement, Gussler says--especially since it has become so hard to find affordable homes or apartments in the Twin Cities. "Those people seldom last more than one year," he says. "The cost in human comforts in winter is too extreme."

Usually, he adds, people who casually inquire about living on houseboats lose interest when they learn the toilet holding tanks must be evacuated every ten days, whether it's sunny and warm or gray and freezing. "In the summertime it's a nuisance. In the winter it can be brutal. Generally you find out within about six months whether they're suited to it."

Both Kramer and Beers, a photographer who has also rehabbed a number of houses in the St. Paul area, opted to buy their new homes for largely pragmatic reasons; they needed places to live and didn't have a lot of money to spend. Beers paid $13,000 for his 38-foot 1974 River Queen and has probably spent that much more to upgrade the appliances (including a composting toilet that must be emptied only twice a year) and redecorate with blond wood paneling and Japanese-style paper sliding doors. "There are not many deals in houses these days, the housing market in the Twin Cities is so tight," Beers says. "On one side I have trees and woods and rocks," he adds, gesturing out his window toward the shoreline. "It's a million-dollar view on a budget price."