OUTDOORS & ADVENTURE | HOUSEBOATING
Houseboating on Lake Mead, Nev., & Lake Shasta, Calif.
All the comforts of home on Lake Mead and Lake Shasta: If the lake level seems higher, maybe it's those multi-ton hulks that are keeping afloat flat-screen TVs, hot tubs and more.
A rap remake of a classic '70s ballad is booming from the upper-deck speakers of David Young's 78-foot houseboat when he invites me aboard.
The sun is baking the harbor at Lake Mead's Callville Bay, but it's cool inside Young's air-conditioned boat. As he nurses a beer, the Las Vegas towing company operator walks me through his shag-carpeted living room, past the satellite TV and DVD player. Down the hall are three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a full-service kitchen.
"If you want to see a really nice boat, you should check out that one," he says, waving his beer can toward the floating mansion in the next slip.
So he takes me onto his neighbor's houseboat to see its centralized carpet vacuuming system, the automated water slide, the four built-in ice makers and the water filtration system that can convert murky lake water into drinking water.
As lavish as that boat is, Young says, it's not as luxurious as "Joe's boat" a few slips away.
I visited Lake Mead on a hot June weekend to gauge the state of modern houseboating. My new beer-swilling pal summarized it in one succinct sentence: "We don't rough it."
For every super-accessorized houseboat I visited, there was another bigger, more expensive version packed from bow to stern with more extravagant amenities. I even spotted exercise equipment atop one.
Houseboats gradually evolved from floating shanties in the early 1800s to quaint cruiser cabins with cramped kitchenettes in the 1960s and '70s. But in the past decade, they have morphed into water-treading castles, containing the kind of creature comforts found in many Beverly Hills day spas.
Houseboat vendors and manufacturers attribute the super-sizing trend to the development of quieter, more efficient generators in the 1980s and the shift toward shared ownership in the 1990s, among other changes. The newer generators made adding onboard appliances, such as air conditioners, televisions and microwave ovens, more practical. And by dividing the cost of a houseboat among 15 to 20 investors, bigger houseboats became more affordable.
Some say the bigger-is-better trend is driven by ego and the need to outdo the next guy. It's the same reason we have hill-hugging McMansions, tank-size SUVs and private jets equipped with gourmet kitchens and massage tables.
"Everywhere you look, everything is getting nicer," says John Sturgill, chief executive of Fantasy Yachts by Botewerks, a Kentucky-based manufacturer of some of the country's most luxurious houseboats. "Your TVs, your RVs, your boats. We were just following the market trend that is happening to everything else."
Whatever the reason, the size of today's houseboats border on the ridiculous. Consider:
•? The Titan, a 65-foot, two-story behemoth that sleeps 22 and comes with a spiral-tube water slide, a fireplace, hot tub for eight and a home theater system. Rent it at Lake Shasta for about $5,200 a weekend.
•? The Millennium, a 70-foot vessel with four queen-size beds, a six-person hot tub, central air and heating, a wet bar and a 36-inch flat-screen TV. Take it for a spin on Lake Mead for about $4,400 for a weekend.
•? The Odyssey, a 75-foot ship with six "staterooms," a gas fireplace, a swim slide, TV screens and a kitchen with a dishwasher, a wine cooler and a trash compactor. About $10,500 gets you seven days on this boat in Lake Powell.
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