Doug McClelland was on an Antarctica cruise on Christmas Day, 2008 when he checked his e-mail and got the news – his floating home had tipped over and was half submerged.
The house was almost destroyed. Instead of restoring the house, Mr. McClelland and his partner, Anthony Tucker, decided to write it off and build their dream home. After three years of planning and construction, the new home just arrived in its slip this month. The house was pulled at five knots per hour from where it was built on Shelter Island, near Richmond. The tugboat almost turned back when it hit a rough patch at the mouth of the Fraser River, but after an intense 10-hour journey, it finally arrived to where Mr. McClelland was waiting on the Coal Harbour dock.
"It was nerve-wracking, because you have no control," he says. "If a big gust of wind or a big wave came up, something terrible could have happened."
The 110-tonne house, designed by architect Russ Chernoff, is more than 1,100 square feet and has three contemporary levels, with cedar and shiny corrugated siding, a roof-top deck and one of the best views in the city – surrounded by boats, ocean, mountains, Stanley Park and downtown skyline. It is one of the city's few remaining floating homes, and part of a uniquely scenic and village-like lifestyle, among boat owners and other marina residents who wave to each other along the docks. There are a total of six such homes in Coal Harbour, and 12 on Granville Island. At Coal Harbour, there are also 20 residents who have licences for live-aboard boats.
The problem is Mr. McClelland and Mr. Tucker can no longer afford their dream home. Now that it's finally in place, the couple is putting the house on the market for $750,000, and they haven't even lived in it.
"It's a bit like a knife in the heart to come down here and see it," says Mr. McClelland, standing in his pristine living room, with bamboo floors and floor-to-ceiling view of the marina. They'd considered living in the house before selling it, but realtor friends said they'd get a better deal if they sold it brand new. The house has two bathrooms with features like granite sinks, marble tile floors, glass enclosed shower, separate tub, as well as den, and two bedrooms, including a master bedroom that is big enough for a king size bed. There are multiple windows in every room, and high-end appliances in the kitchen.
"It's the first time in years that a new floating home has come up for sale in Vancouver," Mr. McClelland says. "And there are so few floating houses."
Realtor Ricki Willing, who specializes in floating homes, says the buyer will probably be someone who uses the house as a secondary, recreational property, or someone who's done their research and fallen in love with the floating home lifestyle.
The uninitiated always have a bevy of concerns. People worry about dampness, even though the houses are well insulated and there's good airflow. Some people can get motion sickness, but they usually adjust, says Ms. Willing. Because you can't park at your front door, you have further to walk with groceries and garbage. When it's low tide, the ramp is steep, so you have to plan moving in with big furniture items during high tide, when the ramp is low. During a windstorm, your house can get tossed around.
As well, there are additional costs, such as higher insurance and moorage fees.
"But the big thing is, there is a tremendous sense of community and people are very helpful," she says. "In a condo, you might meet one or two neighbours, whereas here, you get to know everybody that goes down the dock."
As well, the floating home is more secure than the average house, with 24-hour marina security that operates as a gated community.
There is 13 years left on Mr. McClelland's moorage lease at the marina, which will convert to year-to-year. The moorage fee is $1,000 a month, and in lieu of taxes, there is an annual live-aboard licence fee of about $1,700.
Mr. McClelland says he's in debt by about $150,000 because city regulations for the new floating home meant significant added cost that they hadn't factored into their plans. They spent more than $550,000 in construction costs alone.
"It's the only floating home in the marina that has sprinklers," he says.
On the upside, engineers have ensured this one shouldn't tip over. With an allowance from the marina, they made the house 20-feet wide instead of its former 18-feet width, giving it greater stability.
His previous 25-year-old floating home in Coal Harbour wasn't as stable because of its height and width. It couldn't take the weight of snow that had accumulated in the major snowstorm that year, and, being top heavy, simply toppled over.
There was already a full roof top garden on the house, and once several feet of snow piled up, the whole house fell to one side. The fireplace filled with water, sooty water soon ran throughout the main floor, and furniture and even the refrigerator got tossed across the room. Mr. McClelland and Mr. Tucker learned the details when they returned from their vacation more than a month later. The insurance company had told them there would be no point in rushing home because they'd take care of uprighting the house and hiring a restoration company to remove and store the contents. Mr. McClelland and Mr. Tucker would have to move to a rental apartment. They figured they might as well continue their vacation, so they took another month off in Buenos Aires, he recalls, where they "coped."
"Then we came home, and we saw all the water damage … It didn't feel like home anymore because all of our stuff was gone, which was a good thing, because if I'd walked in and gone through all our destroyed stuff, it would have been hard," he says.
They had purchased the floating home in 1987 for $65,000, and the process hadn't been easy. Shortly after their purchase, the city announced redevelopment of Coal Harbour, and owner Marathon Realty wasn't initially keen on keeping the houseboats and floating homes that were already there.
Mr. McClelland lobbied the city to help the small floating home and houseboat community, and with the help of city councillors and former planning director Larry Beasley, the marina residents were eventually incorporated into the overall redevelopment plan.
Mr. McClelland became an active resident of the new neighbourhood, taking on the role of president of the Coal Harbour Residents' Association. It's a community bonded by a unique situation, which means invites to each other's holiday parties and hitching rides on each other's sailboats.
As for the future, Mr. McClelland isn't sure where they'll set up home, but he's fairly certain it will be in the area. He's got his eye on a co-op building nearby.
"My partner says we should have taken the insurance money and just walked away, because the last three years have been really, really painful," says Mr. McClelland, recalling the hassles they had "first with the insurance company, then the city, then the contractors."
And then, finally, there was the debt. Enough was enough. "We decided, do we devote everything to this house? "Or do we go out for dinner from time to time, and travel – and have a life?"
Special to The Globe and Mail