There’s something about a lake that inspires a mix of giddiness and relaxation. Fishermen trade tips and bait, suntanners flip themselves over, kids keep walking the dock to the marina store and good times in general echo across the water. Some people like it so much they look for any excuse to get there, driving for hours every weekend just to breathe easy on the water for a while. Yet they also miss the amenities of a home.

In the early 1960s, Jim Sharpe saw an opening for a new kind of boat, one that could adapt to the various roles of family home, retreat and party central. The houseboat industry was born in Somerset, Kentucky then and there, and the area’s growth continues unabated to this day.

"The houseboat industry has been very good to this area," says Gib Gosser, Somerset Downtown Development Corporation’s executive director, "because it is almost recession-proof. The people who are in the position to buy new houseboats are always in that position. I don’t know where the end is. I own five of them myself. The first time I saw an 11x40-foot Stardust houseboat, to me that was the ultimate. I thought you couldn’t possibly get more elaborate than that."

It turns out you can.

Getting a piece of recession-proof pie

Upon entering the Somerset area, Sumerset Custom Houseboats’ billboard asks the customer to "visit our competitors first, please." After learning the feuding history of the houseboat business in this area, the slogan takes on a hue that’s more nasty than cute.

Around 80 percent of all houseboats in the U.S. are made in south central Kentucky. Sumerset and Sharpe are the main players in the business, both located in Somerset. Monticello boasts four manufacturers: Horizon, Lakeview, Stardust and Fantasy Yachts. Horizon and Fantasy exist thanks in large part to the area’s federal "empowerment zone" designation, which results in low-interest loans and up to a $3,000 tax credit per employee. In London, Paradise Yachts has just begun producing houseboats. The company hopes to produce around 100 craft a year, and expects to employ 50 people by the end of the year.

Sharpe is both a new and old name in this industry, having just re-incorporated a couple years ago after legal tussles with the new owners of Sumerset.

"Sharpe Houseboats started it in the mid-1960s," says Gosser. "Today in Pulaski County there are two firms, four in Monticello. There are three operations in Russell County. They all really grew from Jim Sharpe’s operation. And they’ve all worked together at some point."

Accusations have flown over the past several years as the various houseboat manufacturers scramble for qualified employees to meet the continuing demand. The enmity between Sumerset and Sharpe is particularly deep, including lawsuits from both sides. Sumerset’s new owners contended that Jim Sharpe started up a new company too soon, in violation of the terms of sale of his old facility, while the Sharpe contingent said they never were paid the full amount for that plant. But the parties have settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

"That’s what happens in this business," says Brent Fothergill, vice president at Sharpe. "There was lot of animosity. But now we’ve just said, ‘You go your way, we’ll go ours, and let’s build some boats.’"

Assembling a floating home

At Sumerset, the 200,000-square-foot facility is humming -- that’s one square foot for each dollar spent on an average Sumerset craft. There are five hulls in the welding department alone, and an order placed in late April will get you a boat by October. The shop manufactures 175 to 200 boats a year, three to four boats a week. Some measure as large as 18 by 100 feet and weigh around 60,000 pounds when they leave final finish.

Jim Holton, Sumerset’s number one marketing man, worked in the Somerset community for six years, and worked within the industry for 15 years. He is a prime mover in the company’s efforts to implement progressive management strategies and set new standards of professionalism.

"The business used to be a couple guys who would promise to build you a good boat," says Holton. "This company wants to take the business and the industry to the next level, to make it the kind of professional place where somebody getting ready to spend a quarter of a million dollars can feel good about the folks they’re spending their money with."

The industry is often lauded for its role in the secondary wood sector of Kentucky’s economy, a $1.8 billion industry statewide that has grown eight to 12 percent in the last six to eight years. Several of the counties around Lake Cumberland have upwards of $25 million in annual sales of such products. But right now, fewer than one-fourth of the trees cut down in Kentucky are used to make products in-state, and a fair amount of both structural and finished wood products at Sumerset and at Sharpe come from elsewhere.

"Our hardwood trim and doors are made in Monticello, but you can’t get all that you might want from Kentucky," says Sharpe’s Fothergill.

"We try to buy in Kentucky as much as we possibly can," says Holton. "The flybridges are made by a local supplier. We buy all of our hardwood doors from a company in Monticello. We want to support the local economy, because it helps with just-in-time manufacturing, and it’s a better relationship if the provider of the product or service is in your own backyard."

Continuing the Sharpe legacy

Just around the corner, Sharpe Houseboats has its own grip on a portion of a tight labor market. The company is coming off a successful appearance at the Nashville expo, and has already had one repeat customer in the family’s latest venture. But the limited supply of skilled labor is a marketing target as crucial as the end user.

"We started as Sumerset Houseboats, ran it for about 25 years," says Fothergill. "When the company was sold two-and-a-half years ago, a majority of the production people came back here and started up Sharpe Houseboats. The Nashville show was really a coming out party for us."

"Connections have helped us have this successful start. A lot of our personnel came with us. Right now we have 82 people, and over 50 percent have been with us for years. When people can make a commitment like that, we must be doing something right."

"Last year was our first full year in business," he continues. "We sold 40 boats, and we hope to sell 60 next year, at an average cost of $150,000 to $200,000. We want to concentrate on quality and customer service."

"Down on the docks, news travels fast," adds associate Frankie Girdler. "We make a priority of keeping to a schedule. When you’re spending this much on a boat, it has to be a fun experience, and little things go such a long way."

"There are cycles in the marine industry like any other," says Fothergill, "but people buying this type of product will always have the money."

Fothergill, like many others, still bridles at the notion of the empowerment zone companies receiving what amounts to free money, when the founding fathers of the industry have done it the old-fashioned way.

"We did it on our own," he says. "Mr. Sharpe is the reason this industry got started here. He developed a lot of the innovations you see today. From the time the lake was impounded, he got the first idea for putting a square box on a steel hull."

The arduous task of shipping boats

Getting these megaboats to their final destinations is the primary challenge facing the industry right now. After all, there’s only so much room for these craft on the shores of Kentucky lakes.

"People would assume that Lake Cumberland would be the primary market," says Gosser, "but it’s amazing how many go out to Lanier, Powell and Mead, and even foreign countries. A lot of people who live here don’t realize the vast numbers."

It turns out that it’s not only a challenge to steer a 100-foot craft -- it’s just as risky trying to navigate it through the tangled byways of interstate commerce.

Recently, Tennessee turned back a Stardust houseboat, not allowing its delivery because of safety regulations on size and transport.

"Tennessee gets six percent on every boat that comes into that state," says Sharpe’s Fothergill. "That’s 10 or 12 grand for doing nothing. A lot of states won’t allow particular sizes. The biggest obstacle right now is Tennessee -- for us, it’s a big gateway to other areas. But each state wants their own piece of change."

"I’ve sent several boats out west to Mead and Powell. It costs about $12,000 to get them out there," says houseboat broker Terry Miller. "As far as consumers are concerned, interstate transport is such a pain. It’s really frustrating, the red tape these movers have to go through. We’re going to start having trouble if they keep turning them around."

Thomas Neckel, CEO and president of Sumerset Houseboats, is acting chair of the National Houseboat Manufacturers Committee, which advises the National Marine Manufacturers Association on issues regarding transportation, safety, environment and quality.

"We have transportation problems, discriminatory problems where other industries have better rules because they have stronger lobbyists," he says. "For example, the mobile and modular home industry can move structures through on more days than we can. Our feeling is that those are more dangerous to move than our boats are.

"We’ve had very little cooperation from our federal offices, in fact they’re counter-productive," he continues pointedly. "Tennessee is the most pressing, and the Carolinas are a huge problem. It’s really restricting our ability to serve our customers, and if we can’t get these things fixed, we’ll have to do some pretty drastic things, including maybe moving out of Kentucky."

Creating a ripple effect

Kentucky’s abundance of lakes has created a lot of work for fabric people, welders, plumbers and other tradespeople who work on houseboats well after delivery. Eight different lakes in Kentucky offer houseboat rentals, a business that is booming at least as loudly as the manufacturing side.

At Lake Cumberland, conditions are ripe for houseboat living. There are about eight marinas, all of which allow houseboats, and the lake has approximately 1,250 miles of shoreline dotted with coves ideal for a quiet weekend around the bend.

In their own way, houseboat marinas literally extend the shoreline, as a walk to the last slip at Lees Ford Marina will prove. Water bugs of every stripe populate these craft, making marinas perhaps the least stratified neighborhoods you’ll find.

"This is a neat marina. I think it’s because they were houseboaters before they were marina owners," says Terry Miller of Top Shelf Marine, which operates the world’s largest floating showroom for new houseboats at Lees Ford. She has already sold 22 boats this year.

Miller points out that houseboats not only appreciate in value, they are also tax-deductible as a second home.

"Some people have decided to buy a boat instead of add on to the house," she says. "It makes for better memories. You take teenagers down to the lake where they have no TV or Internet, and they have to talk to you."

"There’s both a casualness and a courtesy to the liveaboard life," wrote Peter Greenberg in Los Angeles magazine a few years ago. "On a boat, job titles and power lunches don’t mean anything. You’re simply a guy helping another guy look at his engine, lift some new purchase aboard or tie off. We spend a lot of time just shooting the breeze. In a city where the feeling of real community is elusive, I’ve found mine."

Down at that last slip, retiree Lee Ross has found his too.

"This is the first year my wife Yvonne and I have lived on the houseboat," he says. "I started coming down here in 1960, so that makes me and mama about the oldest ones down here at this dock.

"There ain’t no way you’d get me to go back to Cincinnati. My gosh, who’d want to live in the city, when here you don’t have to mow the yard or rake the leaves or shovel snow? Who’d want to live in an environment like that when you have something this beautiful down here? That’s why we chose to sell out and move."

Such fervor is common to both the houseboating population and the slingshot population of returning Kentuckians who are part of this area’s renaissance.

As marina regular Gene New says, "The only reason you’d leave here is so you could come back."

Adam Bruns is a staff writer for The Lane Report