Do you want to live in a '74-foot land yacht' resembling home? You can in Michigan

Is your dream home a "74-foot land yacht"? If so, look no further than Au Gres, Michigan, where a 2,633-square-foot home resembling a boat is on sale. 

The unique house, priced at $750,000, has been for sale since late summer. It's so unusual, its listing agent says, it has been featured in publications nationwide, but 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, located at 5629 E. Augres Ave., has long been an area landmark, Kempf said. Its 2,633 square feet includes 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. 

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The home, dubbed the SS Hurona – the name, according to Kempf, is misspelled in the listing as Huronia – was built in 1936 and sits between two bays on Lake Huron, providing a great view of both the sunrise and sunset. 

After months since it went on the market, the house hasn't sold. Why? Kempf said, in the past few months the home has received plenty of national exposure, even being featured in The Wall Street Journal.

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.

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 nearby Frankenmuth, Michigan, 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.  

Freethy – who now lives in Yarmouth, Maine – said her grandfather built the cottage 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.

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

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."

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. 

"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 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 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, Kempf said he and his friends would party on the deck.

"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. 

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, Michigan

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