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The Floating Cottage on Keuka Lake
by Tricia Noel
Anyone who happened to look out at Keuka Lake shortly before noon on August 8, 1950, would have seen a shocking sight – a house moving gently across the water.
The cottage belonged to John Stevenson Reeve, and his family, who lived on Maiden Lane in Penn Yan. When they purchased the cottage in 1947, it was located on Manley Point, on the west side of the eastern branch of the lake, just north of Bluff Point. The cottage’s previous owner retained the land, and part of the sale agreement was that the Reeves would move the building within three years, so the seller could re-purpose the property. The Reeves agreed, but it was easier said than done.
They purchased a plot of land across the eastern branch, near Lakeside Country Club, and had a foundation with basement constructed. Then came the hard part - figuring out how to move the structure. It was too tall to be moved via land because of power lines and low hanging trees. One company, Gibbs, Stewart and Gibbs, suggested moving it over the lake, but across ice.
Many of the Finger Lakes don’t freeze over frequently, if at all. Keuka, being one of the shallower lakes, does freeze occasionally, but the Reeves still had to wait three years for a proper freeze. In March 1950, the company declared that the ice was ready and drove a truck onto the ice to evaluate its strength. The truck, driven by Edwin Brown, broke through the ice about halfway to its destination (the doors were wired open in case of this scenario, and Brown and his passengers were luckily able to leap out). The truck was hoisted back out with a hook and tow truck by Martin Tones, and the company decided not to try again on ice that year, as it would likely just get thinner as the month progressed. The next winter, they decided, they would make another attempt.
Still, the Reeves were operating on a deadline, so something else needed to done to move the cottage. Gibbs, Stewart and Gibbs decided to try again, this time over water. Using four Army pontoons connected to three outboard motors, the cottage was gently slid onto the surface of the water, where it remained upright. It moved so smoothly that all the furnishings inside – including the curtains and even china in cabinets, according to the Chronicle-Express, remained in place.
People from all over the county stood along East Lake Road or sat in their cars to watch the strange sight of the cottage, with a flag flying aloft, wend its way across the water. Boats and canoes out on the lake accompanied the little house on its travels. It took less than an hour, and then was pulled up onto the shore on large rollers. It remains there to this day, the only cottage on Keuka to have floated across the lake.
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