OUR STORY:
CURATED ARCHIVE
Browse some of our historical artifacts.
We have an open, full archive here, although we thought you might like to see some of our best pieces of our history curated below.
To read the content, scroll inside the thick black lines. To get to the next digital artifact, scroll outside of the content window.
Our houseboats were in Life Magazine in 1946.
In 1985, volunteers Beth Means and Jann McFarland wrote a cookbook full of recipes, humor and floating home life. Scroll in the window and grab some recipes and tall tales.
Our files go back into the 1960s where people worked hard to protect floating homes. Check our this 1966 Exec Committee meeting discussing everything from the $75 profit from the 1965 Christmas Cruise to Health Department to giving approval for plumbing specifications.
Feel free to peer into one of our many photo libraries to view floating home life. Click on the folder to open files...
Our first Floating Home Tours began in the 1970s, thanks to the leadership of longtime FHA steward Jann McFarland. In this 2010 memo, Jann shares her decades of experience and guidance with the new Tour lead, Catherine Major.
We have every newletter since the first on March 19, 1963. Concern for the rights of the floating homes were top of mind in 1976.
The Gentrification of Bohemia: Change in Seattle’s Houseboat Community
​in June 1994 Donald Wysocki
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The document, "The Gentrification of Bohemia: Change in Seattle's Houseboat Community" by Donald Wysocki (June 1994), is a Master's Thesis examining the dramatic social and physical transformation of Seattle's houseboat community over the three decades leading up to 1994. Historically, the community was often seen as "bohemian," "unsanitary," and working-class, facing recurring threats of abolishment from city officials and upland residents. The core argument is that the community's eventual survival and shift to desirability was a unique case of urban gentrification, initiated primarily by the city's formal recognition of houseboats in 1962 and the approval of a sanitary sewer in 1963. These political and infrastructural changes created the necessary economic stability, making houseboat living acceptable and accessible to a new, affluent demographic.
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This newfound stability and marketability led to rapid physical upgrading of the houseboats and a significant demographic shift, as evidenced by a 1994 survey. The new residents were overwhelmingly well-educated, held professional/managerial occupations, and had high rates of owner-occupancy, contrasting sharply with the community's working-class past. However, this process had the consequence of economically displacing many original residents due to costs from maintenance, moorage fee increases, and the rise of condominium moorages. Ultimately, the study concludes that while this unique "urban village" followed the economic patterns of typical gentrification, its sustained existence was also deeply rooted in the strong "sense of community" that both the "old" and "new" residents valued.​
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