Float Home Solitude Lures Hardy Souls Winter Residents Warm To The Isolation Of Lake Life

Nikki Charlton takes a break from her desk and looks out the window. Low clouds scud over the snowy mountains that ring Lake Pend Oreille. A raft of ducks bobs by.

The 54-year-old legal consultant works from home.

Home is on the water.

This is the third winter Charlton is spending in the two-story float home she and her husband moor in Pend Oreille’s Scenic Bay.

“I just feel real privileged. This is just a special way of living,” Charlton says. “It’s so quiet. It makes you think each day of what you’re doing.”

The peaceful beauty of life on a winter lake generally makes up for the antifreeze dumped into the drain after every shower to keep pipes open, the 40-minute trips to the post office, lugging a 100-pound propane tank down a slick dock.

“Storms are kind of fun,” Charlton says. “We can really rock. It’s even knocked pictures off the walls. We know when things go bump in the night, it’s just the float house bumping against the dock.”

Only a handful of hardy North Idaho souls live on the water year-round.

Deep enough to remain ice-free, Scenic Bay holds most if not all of them - about five floating households.

Owners say the lifestyle is probably cheaper per month than living on land. Because space is minimized, heating bills are lower. But the houses are considered personal property, so owners lack an investment in real property and pay personal property tax.

Cory English and her husband, Dan, are spending their first winter in their float home, a refurbished boat shed. Cory English drives to Spokane four days a week for her job as a physical therapist at Deaconess Medical Center. Dan works in Coeur d’Alene as Kootenai County’s clerk.

The two own a roomy home in Coeur d’Alene. But they opted for a change of scenery this year.

“Part of it is the adventure, just to see if we can do it,” Cory English says. “Part of it was to cut back and live more simply.”

The temperature outside is maybe 20 degrees. Inside the living room - what used to be the boat slip - a propane fireplace cranks out enough heat to make it almost too warm. Or just warm enough for Kyura, English’s 3-year-old granddaughter, watching a video. English is sewing at the kitchen table; a book of cookie recipes is open to Jubilee Jumbles.

The couple sleep in a cubicle about 4 feet off the floor. When Kyura spends the night, she gets to crawl into a cozy cubbyhole with a little mattress and all of her toys.

“The floor does get very cold, because it’s so close to the water,” English says.

Float home life is a sheer pleasure in the summer. Few stay through the year. Other bays in the area freeze, blocking boat access. Or lake levels drop, like they do around Heyburn State Park and Conklin Park.

“Nobody lives there year round,” says Ron Hise, the state park’s assistant manager. “It’d be kind of neat if you didn’t have to worry about getting in and out too often.”

An Idaho Department of Lands count in 1990 revealed 171 float homes on North Idaho lakes and rivers. Of those, 61 were on Lake Coeur d’Alene, in places like Wolf Lodge Bay and other bays; 28 were on Hidden Lake; and 81 were on Lake Pend Oreille.

The total is dropping: The state of Idaho hasn’t allowed new floating homes since 1978.

State officials protecting the public’s ownership of submerged lands say the policy reflects the fact that houses belong on land.

“You don’t have to have water to have a home like you have to have water to have a dock,” said Will Pitman, administrator of Idaho’s Lake Protection Act.

The intent is to gradually phase out float homes, Pitman said. “Although I do not see that ever happening.”

Charlton’s doing her best to see it doesn’t.

“Our oldest son and his wife were here for Thanksgiving, and our first granddaughter,” she says. “We intend to make sure she loves it out here.”