User:ThomasSavage111/Wagner Houseboat

Built just before 1912, the Wagner Houseboat (or "The Old Boathouse") is a historic floating home, located at 2770 Westlake Avenue, North, in Seattle, Washington. The Wagner Boathouse was previously called “The Old Boathouse” while it was being used as the epicenter of the Center for Wooden Boats. Today, the community pioneered by the Wagner Boathouse represents the transition of South Lake Union from an urban industrial wasteland to a thriving residential community teaming with Pacific Northwest history. This houseboat is also one of very few lasting relics of the floating resort communities that were once heavily prominent in the waters of 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 of Houseboats on Lake Washington
Throughout the second half of the 1800's, floating structures became popular in the Pacific Northwest as shelters for the local roughneck laborers of the lumber and fishing industry. The economic disparity and rowdy behavior of these floating home inhabitants quickly gave houseboats an unfavorable image due to the illegal activity that often took place on the waters edge.

However in 1888, the Yesler cable-car was constructed and gave wealthy Seattle families access to shores of Lake Washington in places like Madison Park, Denny-Blaine and Madrona. This new found access caused luxuriously built houseboats to spring up along the shores of Lake Washington developing communities of floating summer homes. These trendy communities continued to grow in popularity during the warm summer months as houseboat parties, musical gatherings and boating events turned these floating home communities into exhilarating social settings. This transition of houseboat ownership from economically impoverished to summer homes for the elite was a concept Americans borrowed from the British who began using houseboats as second homes for recreational purposes.

A prominent member of these communities was the Wagner Houseboat, which was nestled in a community off the shores of Madison Park. This home represents the development of these luxury communities and reflects what the shoreline of Madison Park looked like in the early 1900's. 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 issue was that many of these houseboat inhabitants could not afford or did not have the means to connect their homes to the city sewer lines. This 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 it's current location on Lake Union. The Wagner Houseboat represents a physical remnant of these luxurious floating lake communities that would otherwise be lost in history.

During the crest of their popularity, approximately 4,000 houseboats rested on the waterways in and around Seattle, however those numbers declined to nearly 500 during the 1950's.

Dick Wagner
In the late 1950's 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 lead 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 passed away on Thursday, April 20, 2017 at his home.

Colleen Wagner
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
The Wagner Houseboat was the birthplace of the Center for Wooden Boats. In the late 1950's, 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.

Physical Construction of Wagner Houseboat
As previously mentioned, the Wagner Houseboat was completed over a century ago, just before 1912 as a summer home on Lake Washington near Madison Park. This houseboat is a "Cottage Style" home constructed from locally sourced Pacific Northwest wood and reflects historic building techniques of early houseboat design. The fact that the Wagner Houseboat is a century old structure built from wood and is still floating proves that biologically renewable resources can float on water for long periods of time if maintained correctly.

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 it's 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 piece of mind knowing they can detach their home and move to a preferred location if needed.