Wow... looks dreamy!

Living in Den Haag [the Hague, Netherlands] I am surrounded by houseboats from canal to canal. They run the gamut from shabby to shangri-la. And I've been dying to peek inside some of them. Thanks for satisfying a bit of my houseboat curiosity.
-anna
chateausavoie.com

Au contaire, mon bateauphile! Any permanent liveaboard moorage near a city will most likely have property taxes levied, even though the living space is not 'real property. Our floating home moorage in Oregon lost a case with the state over this issue.

My floating château in the 80's:
http://dean.pulley.org/door2.jpg

One of my dreams is to someday live on a houseboat - probably from reading too many John D MacDonald mysteries in my youth

You can't read too many John M. MacDonald mysteries. The Travis McGee mantle has been assumed by "Doc" Marion Ford - a character created by Randy Wayne White (who lives about ten miles from me on Pine Island). Traded the Busted Flush for an antique stilt fish house off Sanibel Island. Awesome pulp fiction!

My first thought whenever I think about living on a houseboat is Travis McGee. But nobody can ever assume the mantle left my the passing of John D. MacDonald. At least Travis McGee will live forever! Him and Meyer are probably sharing a boat with 4 beach bunnies right now, sipping away at some Boodles gin.

You have to remember Travis' rule about living on a boat- an hour a day of maintenance. It is a lot of work.

I love the posts on houseboats. Thanks!

gttim - I share your loyalty (although a key slip from D to M is pretty broad), but you should give the Doc Ford novels a spin if you're jonesing for more South Florida mystery goodness from an imperfect, introspective protagonist. I was pretty reluctant, especially since the Meyer character has been assumed by a sailboat dwelling burnt out hippie polymath named Tomlinson.

After slogging through a few to get to the better stuff (as with John D.), I brought White a treasured old copy of The Lonely Silver Rain to sign as a continuity gesture. He looked surprised, but shrugged his shoulders and signed away. Not sure how conscious the modeling was, but it's there.

White does his research and paints nice vignettes of this bizarre area, one of the chief pleasures of the MacDonald novels. As MacDonald used his WWII Burma background to inform McGee's character, White was a Sanibel saltwater fly fishing guide and adventure travel columnist for Outside magazine prior to writing this series.

I *almost* scored renting a houseboat to live on the summer after I graduated from college!
Unfortunately, the guy decided to sell it before he rented it to me, and just stopped returning my calls and e-mails.

I still have regrets about losing the opportunity, because damn, a houseboat on the Mississippi would have been amazing.

I even purchased a little statuette to act as a doorstop - saw him at a thrift sale, and couldn't resist. He looks like he belongs on a boat, and in my landlocked apartment, looks a little forlorn that he's not on the river.

This made me think of the movie Houseboat starring Cary Grant and Sophia Loren.

i watched a special on PBS about a year ago about this woman and her friend renovating an old barge into a houseboat and setting up home in Louisiana swamplands.

they had their our place to grow all their own foods and didn't go back to 'civilization' for a year or more.

since then, i've always wanted to live on a houseboat. boating is a family tradition and i think it would be a grand way to live.

Yeah, I'd love to live on a houseboat. Here in Seattle, though, houseboats have gotten as expensive if not more so than regular houses.

And I'm pretty sure you pay property tax on them. Or some kind of tax.

this looks really cute and unique! got to have one!

joe