Seattle's storied (and sometimes sinking) floating homes evolve

On Lake Union and Portage Bay, Seattle’s floating homes have become a living museum—part history, part evolving real estate. The community centers on four areas: Eastlake, Westlake and Northlake on Lake Union, plus Portage Bay facing the University of Washington, with 507 homes arranged around roughly 70 docks. The article notes that as younger residents move in, design is changing as older structures decay or sink and get rebuilt. It traces origins to the 1880s, when crude floating shacks supported the logging industry. By the 1920s, floating homes were tied to Prohibition-era smuggling and hidden liquor caches. Historian Adam Woog’s 2025 book “Still Afloat” is cited for the history.