Boat-shaped house for sale in northern Michigan getting national attention

Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press
·7 min read
The front view of a home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.
The front view of a home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

A house on Point Lookout in Au Gres that its former owner called a "74-foot land yacht" has been for sale since late summer. It's so unusual, its listing agent says, it has been featured in publications nationwide, but it just hasn't sold — yet.

"It is extremely unusual," agent Marty Kempf said. "When you're inside of it, you'd think you're in a boat."

The house, at 5629 E. Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with five bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its rooms have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

The master bedroom, for instance, is the captain's quarters.

Looking out of the front windows of the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.
Looking out of the front windows of the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

The home, dubbed the SS Hurona — the name, according to Kempf, is misspelled in the listing as Huronia — was built in 1936 and sits where Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay meet.

As a result, Kempf said, both the sunrise and sunset are visible from it.

It can all be yours for $750,000.

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Why hasn't it sold yet?

Well, Kempf said, in the past few months the home has received plenty of national exposure. Don't believe it? Just Google boat-shaped house and Michigan. Several photos and articles will pop up.

Even the Wall Street Journal is mentioning it.

But in a twist, the agent said, his biggest challenge is that the owner, Carol Kurth, is emotionally attached to the home. He doesn't blame her. Her late husband, Eddie Kurth, loved that house.

Why it was built

In September, Realtor.com wrote about the home, calling it "a boat house that isn’t really a boat." It added that its origins go back to a man who loved to sail — and also loved his wife.

Nearly a century ago, the original owners would vacation near the property, where there was a hotel and steamships from Detroit would dock. But when they got there, the husband liked to go boating, so much that his wife never saw him.

The rear view of a home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.
The rear view of a home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

One day, she finally had enough, and laid down the law. She told him only partially in jest: "Look, if you want a boat, why don’t you build a cottage that looks like a boat so at least I can see you?"

And he did.

Barbara Freethy, 72, confirmed her grandfather William Baum was the original owner of the house. He loved sailing, owned old wooden boats and designed the cottage to look like "a steamship, emerging from the bluff."

He immigrated to Frankenmuth from Germany, she said. He went into the insurance business. He spent about $12,000 to build it, and some of the local residents called it Baum's Folly.

William Baum, at the house in the 1950s, was the original owner. He loved sailing, owned old wooden boats and designed the cottage to look like "a steamship, emerging from the bluff."
William Baum, at the house in the 1950s, was the original owner. He loved sailing, owned old wooden boats and designed the cottage to look like "a steamship, emerging from the bluff."

Freethy — who now lives in Yarmouth, Maine — said her grandfather built the cottage within in a year with help from a friend, who was a carpenter, and his children. And she spent her summers there growing up. It was the highlight of her childhood.

A photo of the house, which was taken with snow covering the ground, appeared in the Free Press on Feb. 16, 1947, with a caption that called it "part whimsy and part practical home building."

When Baum died in the 1970s, the family sold the house to another owner, who Eddie Kurths bought it from about a decade ago.

Freethy added the cottage, which still has a steering wheel in the living room and big windows that look out onto the water, creates the illusion of being at sea — or on the Great Lakes.

Barbara Baum Freethy.
Barbara Baum Freethy.

"It's very magical," she told the Free Press, adding that while she misses the home and would like to visit it again, her wish now is that another family will buy it and "give it lots of tender loving care."

Other boat-shaped homes

The cottage is one of a handful of novelty homes — and buildings — in Michigan and around the world that are designed to look like maritime vessels. Each has its own story.

There's the Fenmoor Cottage in Onekama, a village on the west side of the state. It was designed by a professor at Lake Forest College, Illinois, and built in the 1930s as a vacation home.

The Manistee County visitor's bureau, which highlights the unusual two-bedroom cottage online, describes the structure as a boathouse "moored in the swamp." It is significant enough to be added to the Michigan State Register of Historic Places.

In Wisconsin, Edmund Gustorf built a and 30-foot lighthouse and boat-shaped home, which overlook the Milwaukee River, in the 1920s. A traveling salesman, Gustorf thought he might earn some extra cash by charging tours.

But zoning laws prevented that, so he moved in.

Some joke that the lighthouse was a fail because a boat ran aground anyway.

A 4,400-square-foot house, built in 2017 on a 60-foot bluff overlooking the Niantic River in Waterford, Connecticut, resembles a 1920s steamship. The Robb Report, a luxury-lifestyle magazine, profiled the house, saying "Mark Twain would have approved."

In California, the Encinitas Preservation Association rents two homes — the SS Encinitas and SS Moonlight — that look like side-by-side boats in dry dock just 2 blocks from the beach.

According to the Encinitas Historical Society, they were built by architect Miles Kellogg in the late 1920s from timber salvaged from the local bathhouse and a hotel, the Moonlight Beach Dance Parlor, that failed during Prohibition.

And in L.A., real estate magazine of the stars Dirt.com, reports a nearly 10,500-square-foot, multimillion dollar, ship-shaped mansion known as the Bel Air Yacht, where Kelly Clarkson and her fellow finalists lived while on "American Idol," also is for sale.

A labor of love

Kempf, 73, said he remembers the Au Gres house growing up.

It is a beloved local residence, he said, for many reasons. When he was a teen and the owners would depart for vacation, he said, and he and his friends would party on the deck.

One of the rooms in the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.
One of the rooms in the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

"It is right on the point," said Kempf said, adding he has many fond memories of it. "When you're there, you can look one way and see Saginaw Bay. You look the other way, you see Lake Huron."

He said he sold the house to Eddie Kurth, a buddy, about a decade ago.

And perhaps like a real boat, Kurth was always working on it.

"He'd call me at least once a week and thank me for making him wise to it," Kempf said. "He'd go to bed at night thinking about his 'boat,' and how he wanted to update something, and then he'd get up in the morning and do it."

The real estate agent said if he had the money he'd buy the place.

Looking out of the front windows of the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.
Looking out of the front windows of the home dubbed the S.S. Hurona on Point Lookout in Au Gres. The house, at 5629 E Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. It's 2,633 square feet, with 5 bedrooms and 2½ bathrooms. And it looks so much like a boat that its room have been referred to by its owners in nautical terms.

Still, he added, it's a joy just to talk about it because folks find it so fascinating.

When he held an open house for the SS Hurona, more than 100 people came out to see it. It was, he said, as if he were giving tours. Some local visitors, he said, obviously wanted to just peek inside.

A few, who didn't know its history even asked, "So, how did they get the boat here?"

The SS Hurona

Built in the 1930s, the unusual house has been on the market since the late summer and has been featured in publications nationwide. It also is included among structures around the world that are designed to look the ships and boats.

Address: 5629 E. Augres Ave. in Au Gres

Size: 2,633 square feet; 5 bedrooms, 2½ baths

Property: 0.84 of an acre

Listing price: $750,000

Agents: Marty and Laura Kempf, 989-284-0920

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Boat-shaped house in Au Gres for sale gets national attention