2770 Westlake Avenue North
Seattle, WA, USA

Wagner Houseboat

The Wagner Houseboat, also known as The Old Boathouse, is a historic floating home in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is located on Lake Union at 2770 Westlake Avenue, North near the Aurora Bridge. It was built in 1912 and named for Richard Wagner, who bought it in the 1950s. Wagner and his wife Colleen later founded the Center for Wooden Boats, which was based out of their houseboat.

Today, the Wagner Boathouse represents the transition of South Lake Union from industrial use to a residential community. The houseboat is also one of few remaining relics of the floating resort communities that were once prominent on Lake Washington.

As one of Seattle's oldest houseboats, the Wagner Houseboat was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 19, 1982.

History
The construction of houseboats and other floating structures became popular in the Pacific Northwest during the late 19th century, beginning as cheap shelter for laborers in the lumber and fishing industries. The antisocial behavior of these floating home inhabitants quickly gave houseboats an unfavorable image due to the illegal activity that often took place on the water's edge. The construction of streetcars and cable cars to the Lake Washington waterfront caused houseboats to become associated with wealthier residents, who used them for social gatherings. During the height of their popularity, approximately 4,000 houseboats rested on the waterways in and around Seattle, however those numbers declined to nearly 500 during the 1950s.

The Wagnthe water's edges built in 1912 and originally docked near Madison Park. In 1938, the city of Seattle required houseboats on Lake Washington to be connected to sewer lines after installing lines along the shores of the lake. The requirement to add expensive sewer lines caused a mass migration of houseboats from Lake Washington to Lake Union, where there was no sewer requirement until 1967. In 1938, the Wagner Houseboat was towed from Lake Washington to its current location on Lake Union.

Wagner's ownership
In the late 1950s, during a summer internship, Dick Wagner "fell in love with Seattle". At the time, he was an architecture student in New York City where his love for building design flourished. He would walk the streets of New York and admire the historic design of the local architecture. Dick preferred to learn through hands-on experience rather than from a textbook and classroom setting. Upon graduating from both Yale and Columbia, Dick returned to Seattle with a passion to turn Seattle into a national treasure and destination location for tourists. Dick's impression on the waterfront communities of Seattle will be felt forever. He had a passion for teaching others to sail regardless of economic or cultural ability, which led to the creation of the Center for Wooden Boats. His mission was to make sailing accessible to the public and to teach them sailing through hands of experience. Dick died at his home on April 20, 2017.

Also a strong advocate for hands-on learning, Colleen had a degree in fine arts and was a talented artist. Along with her husband, Colleen was co-founder of the Center for Wooden Boats with a strong passion for maritime history. Colleen was also founder and executive director for the Discovery Modelers Education Center. For her impact on the preservation of maritime history, Colleen was awarded with the Association of King County Historical Organizations' Board Legacy award in 2019. After her husband Dick passed away in 2017, Colleen continued living in the Old Boathouse until she passed away on January 2, 2020. Colleen is remembered for her welcoming spirit and passion for maritime history and preservation.

Center for Wooden Boats
Main article: Center for Wooden Boats
The Wagner Houseboat was the birthplace of the Center for Wooden Boats. In the late 1950s, Dick and Colleen Wagner began collecting and restoring old wooden boats. As they would work on boats and complete them, they would store their collection behind their home. Using their collection of small wooden boats, the couple decided to create a non-profit boat rental center out of their home by hanging a sign that says, "The Old Boathouse" on the dock in front of their houseboat. The Old Boathouse officially opened as a non-profit on February 1, 1968. After this, the Center for Wooden Boats museum was born. Eventually, friends of the Wagner's began spending time at their home helping them restore these old wooden boats. This friend group continued to grow both in numbers and in their devotion to preserving the history of wooden boats. This group of came so committed that they would end up staying night after night helping the couple with their restoration process and joining in the effort of the mission created by Dick and Colleen.

Once the couple realized the strong devotion of others in the community, it became apparent to the couple that this group of volunteers could support a nonprofit organization guided by their mission. Therefore, on February 3, 1976, Dick and Colleen decided to begin plans to open the Center for Wooden Boats as a way to maintain the history of sailing and wooden boats. This mission also aimed to get anyone and everyone, no matter their physical ability or financial ability, out on the water and given the chance to learn to sail. When the Center for Wooden Boats was officially created, operations were moved out of the Wagner Houseboat and into an official Center for Wooden Boats nonprofit location.

The Center for Wooden Boats (CWB) was able to build such a large and committed group of volunteers that other nonprofit leaders around the country have focused on how CWB was able to build such a devoted community and tried to model their success. Currently, close to 75,000 people visit CWB annually to engage in the various maritime actives they provide.

Design
The Wagner Houseboat was built as a summer home on Lake Washington near Madison Park. It was designed in the "Cottage Style" and constructed from locally sourced wood; it reflects historic building techniques of early houseboat design.

Another advantage to the Wagner Houseboat construction is the fact that, due to any undesired circumstances, the home can simply be moved to another location along the water. This feature is becoming increasingly desirable because of the rising sea levels and increased flooding across the globe. The Wagner Houseboat was forced to relocate in 1938. If this home was attached to solid ground rather than floating, simply moving the structure from one location to another would have been impossible. This feature of a houseboat construction helps us understand the environmental advantage of floating homes because without its unique floating construction, the inhabitants of the Wagner Houseboat would have had to abandon their home and construct another one in their new location. In a houseboat construction, there is no need to commit to an exact geological location, therefore one can maintain peace of mind knowing they can detach their home and move to a preferred location if needed.

National Register of Historic Places - Wagner Houseboat

Statement of Significance:

The Wagner Houseboat is one of very few intact examples of Seattle's earliest floating homes. At their peak, over 1,200 houseboats resided on Seattle's waterways. Today there is a stable community of over 445 floating homes on Lake Union and Portage Bay. The Wagner Houseboat was built prior to 1912 as a summer home on Lake Washington and was towed in later years to its present location on Lake Union. It is not only a unique and unaltered specimen of early houseboat design, but also a tangible reminder of the floating resort communities that once prospered on Lake Washington.

Seattle's houseboat community has a long and colorful history. The first floating homes were residences of working stiffs — loggers, millworkers, and fisherman. These houseboats were shacks built upon log rafts, old barges or abandoned hulls. The earliest known colony, inhabited mostly by fishermen, was moored to the public piers in Elliott Bay. The city banished this ragtag community in 1908, and many of the boats were moved into the mouth of the Duwamish River. Single working men, many of them loggers, lived along the shores of the Duwamish for several decades. This houseboat colony expanded during the depression years.

Another kind of houseboat community had begun to flourish in another part of Seattle. Sometime before 1905, floating summer homes had sprung up along the shore at fashionable Madison Park on Lake Washington. Local newspapers reported on the growth of this phenomenon and recognized it as an exciting new element in Seattle's life fabric. Dance pavilions at Madison Park and Leschi also contributed to the resort atmosphere of the lake front. Cable car lines connected these parks to the city center, increasing their accessibility for summer outings.

The Wagner Houseboat is pictured in a 1912 photograph as the scene of a lively social gathering, where canoes of middy-bloused girls paddle about around its sheltered deck. By 1910, however the trend-setting houseboat lifestyle had become more than a fad. By then houseboats served a substantial number of working men, as well as middle- and upper-class families as vacation retreats or year-around homes.

The promise of a ship canal connecting Lake Washington to Puget Sound was the impetus for industrial, business, and residential development around Lake Union, a small body of water between the two larger ones. In 1909 boosters of the Alaska-Yukon Pacific Exposition convinced the State Legislature to sell private plats around Lake Union. These factors influenced the growth of houseboat living on Lake Union and encouraged the casual mixture of working-class and professional houseboat ownership which prevails even today. In 1917, when the long-awaited ship canal joined Puget Sound with freshwater Lake Washington, the Lake's water level was lowered by some 9 feet. At that time and in the years that followed, many summer houseboats were towed to Lake Union, among them the Wagner Houseboat, moved in 1938.

Seattle's houseboats are now nationally recognized as more than individual floating dwellings. They have captured an image of freedom and independence. The Wagner Houseboat is a fine example of the early 1900 cottage style of houseboat design and is especially significant as an intact survivor of the golden heyday of floating summer homes on Lake Washington.