Stilt Home

We'd like to have a home base in Florida. We found the south pretty expensive even in these desperate times. And south Florida is pretty badly scarred by corporate America and haphazard development.

This spring we found the St Johns River and what feels to us like "Old Florida". It's live oaks & Spanish moss, lofty pines and palm trees, ferns and small towns. In Welaka, for example, the closest town to our home in Acosta Creek Marina, there are NO FRANCHISES. The mayor asked Dollar General to take a hike last year--not interested.

And then there's the St Johns River. It's breathtakingly beautiful--130+ miles of navigable waterway that connects with the oceans of the world through Jacksonville. Our boat(s) benefit from living in the far less damaging fresh water, but the Bahamas are still a couple of weeks away.

So it may be 10 degrees colder on average than further south, and there may be less excitement, and it may be a long way from our friends in Bradenton and Loxahatchee, but otherwise it attracts us very strongly.

We found an affordable lot with 100' of canal just off the St Johns. It's less than a quarter acre but feels larger due to the setting. On Craigslist we also found modular classrooms for sale for $8500 installed.

Our first take when we got here last year was that while there were lots of bargain homes in the burbs around all the cities we visited, we'd never be able to buy on the water. That, at least, was my take. Beej just decided we'd live on the water. This may be the way.

So we want to take this modular, put it up on 10' stilts, and have this.

We might end up with something more like this...

But then again, if we keep at it, maybe like this...