Built from ingenuity and desperation, the French coastal village of Equihen-Plage gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘boat house’.
The village continues the old tradition of building houses out of discarded boat hulls. This was originally an act of necessity when dirt-poor fishermen needed a cheap way to build a shelter for their families.
Today the village of Equihen-Plage is a vacation destination where you can rent one of these beauties for a holiday.
Most of the current boat houses are newer builds but there are still a couple of older ones intact.
The photo below shows how the old hulls are hoisted onto a cinder block foundation:
The hulls became roofs after getting a reinforcing coat of tar.
Windows and doors were added as well but as you can imagine, the dwellings were rather tight.
Imagine raising kids in these little boat houses! Multiple kids!
Most of the original boat houses were destroyed during World War II due to the village’s location on the coast of northern France. Fortunately in the 1990s, some enterprising, history loving locals started rebuilding the unique homes.
Today you can rent these little inverted boathouse cuties.
But Equihen Plage is not just a vacation spot, there are many locals who actually live there year round – over 3000 of them!
Perhaps they have a boathouse for each child?
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