The Life Aquatic
Photo: John Granen
When you live year-round in a bucolic mountain resort, what do you do for an encore? That's a question friends have been asking Barry Peterson ever since the jewelry designer moved to idyllic Sun Valley, Idaho, 36 years ago. "People ask me what I'm going to do when I retire, and I've always said I want a cabin on a lake in the middle of a city," he laughs. Little did he suspect his wish would come true.
Then one day a friend from Seattle mentioned she was building a houseboat on Lake Union, an urban waterway just north of that city's core. Barry's ears perked up. He'd fantasized about living on a houseboat since his teens, and when the friend said the slip next to hers was still available, Barry and his girlfriend, Candice Rosenberg (they have since married), decided to take the plunge.
Seduced by the floating lifestyle—but not the Victorian gingerbread that often characterizes it—the couple asked Tim Carlander of Vandeventer + Carlander Architects for a contemporary weekend retreat that would be spacious and maintenance free. To make the most of the houseboat's limited footprint, Carlander started with a cube and began chipping away at it, carefully carving out decks and a recessed entry while preserving as much interior volume as possible. Inside, pale gray walls and bamboo flooring offer a serene backdrop to Candice's eclectic furnishings. The muted color palette prevents any trace of dissonance; even a pair of 18th-century Italian chairs looks contemporary when upholstered in an understated Jack Lenor Larsen pinstripe.
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