Houseboats: Living large on the 'Redneck Riviera'

On Kentucky's Lake Cumberland, houseboats rival the luxury mansions of The Hamptons.

By Matthew Shaer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 15, 2007 edition

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Monticello, Ky. - Here on the calm waters of Lake Cumberland, at a dock off the Conley Bottom Marina, sits La Louisianne, a houseboat whose broad flank is emblazoned with a simple motto: Laissez les bon temps rouler.

Let the good times roll. Appropriate for a boat that looks, on first inspection, to have been created purely for pleasure. Like so many of the vessels here, La Louisianne resembles the nautical equivalent of Versailles. These floating palaces, which can travel no more than a couple of miles an hour, retail for hundreds of thousands of dollars – sometimes for more – and boast water slides, Jacuzzis, and jet-ski cradles. Most houseboats measure between 60 and 110 ft. in length. Many never leave the dock.

Taken together, the buoyant mansions constitute a bobbing neighborhood for retirees or boomers looking for something more exotic than a Gulfstream RV. This close-docked community, nestled in the foothills of rural farmland, reflects a peculiar nexus of creature comfort and a very American kind of frontierism.

"We love it – it's the Redneck Riviera," says Vince Messina of Cincinnati, who calls himself a member of the "Ohio navy" and has been visiting the area for eight years. His current boat has five bedrooms; each is equipped with a flat-screen TV.

"The great thing about Lake Cumberland is that we can have a private waterfront estate that moves whenever we feel like it," Mr. Messina says.

The "Redneck Riviera" is a familiar refrain here at Lake Cumberland, which sprawls across Clinton, Laurel, Russell, Wayne, and Pulaski counties in southern Kentucky. The lake was artificially created in the 1950s by the construction of the Wolf Creek Dam, and now covers more than 60,000 acres. That entire expanse, from tip to tip, is dotted with houseboats – small boats, medium-sized boats, but mostly large, shiny boats.

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Play time: A Sumerset houseboat meanders through Lake Powell, Utah. Courtesy of Dave Tate/Sumerset Houseboats