Arrrr you in the market for a new house? Unique Idaho property listing goes viral
“Life is short. Buy the pirate ship.”
The first half of the sentiment, the closing lines of a Zillow ad for an Idaho home listed for sale earlier this month, is pretty common. The second half is as unexpected as the property itself.
The house, which is owned by unique vacation rental creator Kristie Wolfe, is on the market for $799,000.
Pirate ship is no exaggeration. The home resembles the prow of a wooden ship jutting into a mountain lake, complete with a pointed bowsprit decorated with a carved figurehead of a woman.
Wolfe told the Idaho Statesman she bought the house in 2020 after it had sat abandoned for some time. It was originally built as a private cabin resembling a ship in the 1970s but had fallen into disrepair, which led her to christen the property the Shipwreck.
“It looked like it was hit by a cannonbalI,” she recalled.
Wolfe said it took about two years of repairs to get the two-bedroom, three-bathroom house into the condition it’s currently in: a three-story waterfront property with renovated kitchens and bathrooms, built-in bunk beds, a dock and a deck complete with functional water cannon.
Wolfe is known for her quirky vacation rentals, which include the Big Idaho Potato near Boise; a Hobbit home in Chelan, Washington; a cocoon in Oregon; a tropical treehouse in Hawaii; and several Idaho fire lookouts. She told the Statesman her other rentals are for couples, so when she had the chance to decorate the Shipwreck House for family stays, “it was really fun because I could kind of go crazy with the theme.”
And she did.
Photos and videos of the interior reveal buccaneer style down to the most minute details, like octopus tentacle door handles. Visitors can relax on gilded furniture beneath a ship-shaped chandelier, study geography on a wall-sized world map, play dress-up with pirate hats and swords, take photos with a life-sized pirate statue and swim on Williams Lake from the deserted island-themed dock.
Wolfe also stocked the house with pirate-themed entertainment, like a built-in treasure hunt.
“This house has a projector, and so instead of it just being able to hook up to Netflix or anything, we have a Fire Stick that has all of the favorite pirate shows, like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and ‘Goonies’ and ‘Hook,’ ” she said.
The rental has been a hit. According to the Zillow listing, it has earned about $80,000 in annual revenue since it opened.
Wolfe said she hopes the next owners will continue to have it as a vacation rental, and confirmed any existing reservations will be honored as part of the sale agreement.
“I think a lot of people that have been following me are shocked that I’m parting ways with it, because it was such a labor of love,” Wolfe said.
Wolfe said she's selling the house because she’s prioritizing a fire tower lookout project and museum build in Wallace, a small town about 50 miles east of Coeur d’Alene.
“I have eight listings that are all completely different from one another and in four states, and I do like 60,000 miles in my truck every year for the last eight years,” Wolfe said. “So I’m trying to maybe get to the point where I only have places in Wallace and Boise.”
Wolfe said she has already had a lot of calls from people interested in the Shipwreck House, and she held an open house on Wednesday. She said interest in the property also took off when the sale listing was featured on Zillow Gone Wild, a social media account that features weird and unique homes.
By Wednesday, the Zillow listing had been viewed more than 11,000 times and saved by more than 500 users.
“I think it just really catches hold of people’s imaginations,” Wolfe said.
