Pontoon Porch In The News
10/02/08
Wisconsin State Journal
Party barge Plies Lake Monona
The screened porch floating on Lake Monona is not a delusion or a remnant of a house that collapsed into Lake Delton and mysteriously found its way to another body of water.
The tentative name for this peculiar vessel is Badger Barge, and it's the result of a mistake made last summer by Joe Shulla, of Madison. Shulla, who constructs decks and piers for a living, had been hired by a Texas couple to build a screened porch attached to a pier on Twin Lake in Barron County.
Everybody loved the finished product ...
Party Barge Plies Lake Monona
Wisconsin State Journal
Thusday October 2, 2008
Chris Martell
The screened porch floating on Lake Monona is not a delusion or a remnant of a house that collapsed into Lake Delton and mysteriously found its way to another body of water.
The tentative name for this peculiar vessel is Badger Barge, and it's the result of a mistake made last summer by Joe Shulla, of Madison. Shulla, who constructs decks and piers for a living, had been hired by a Texas couple to build a screened porch attached to a pier on Twin Lake in Barron County.
Everybody loved the finished product — except the DNR warden who demanded that it be detached from the pier to conform with state regulations.
Not willing to let all that hard work go to waste, Shulla had, if not a light bulb moment, a Mermaid Car Wash plastic drum moment. He decided to mount the displaced screened porch on large plastic drums given to him by buddies at Mermaid and intended for making piers. It would become a ... raft ... or a houseboat ... or a pontoon boat.
"That was the only way to answer DNR restrictions without jumping through hoops," Shulla said. No matter what it was called, the floating porch was OK with the DNR, since there are few regulations for homemade boats.
Shulla also noticed that people enjoyed the porch even more when it was adrift on the lake than when it was part of the pier. Even his 20-something sons and their friends didn't want to return to land after hanging out on the floating porch.
"A 200-pound man can walk around on it and it doesn't move at all," Shulla said. "It's so stable that people feel comfortable, and they like being so close to water and nature without being attacked by bugs.''
Shulla returned to Madison with plans to build a bigger floating porch for himself. He'd rent it for parties, with the ultimate goal of building tiny floating porches that individuals could buy for about $18,500 and haul in ordinary boat trailers.
For this project, in which Shulla invested about $25,000 and months of labor, he worked closely with DNR officials, who suggested pointed plastic cones in front to make the porch navigable.
Shulla's Ark began to take shape on his West Side driveway this summer. Neighbors watched as 54 55-gallon drums were attached to deck flooring, after which walls and a 14-foot collapsible gable roof on hinges were put on, allowing the boat to be flattened for transport beneath bridges. The 28-by-14 vessel can also fit through locks on Madison's lakes.
"This is not made for speed," Shulla noted. A dozen people can be seated comfortably on couches, and a loft holds a queen-size mattress. A sliding door opens to the deck, and a narrow walkway with a 30-inch high railing allows people to move around the periphery of the boat. A flat-screen TV with a satellite dish will also be installed.
At 4 a.m. Wednesday, a crane lifted the 10,500-pound floating porch from Shulla's driveway for its maiden voyage off Olin Park on Lake Monona.
"It floats!" he said later that day. "You don't know what a huge relief that was."