Through cold, storms and karaoke Stacy Rae Seminick finds joy in houseboat living

When I heard someone lives year-round on a houseboat in Providence, in the marina near the hurricane barrier, I pictured some gray-haired salt of a fisherman.

Instead, I found Stacy Rae Seminick.

She’s 40, works as a bartender at the airport and sports a shave-sided hairdo called a death-hawk.

But she couldn’t be friendlier, welcoming me aboard after I made my way to the Providence Marina near the Hot Club.

There are exactly 50 boats there, most of them perennials, since the waiting list to dock here during summer is years long. A half dozen are houseboats, including a two-bedroom shingled one that went up for sale recently. That got me asking Keith Anderson, who runs the marina, about other Providence liveaboards.

Talk to Stacy Rae, he said. Others come and go, especially in winter, but she’s among the few year-rounders.

And now I’m stepping onto her 50-foot-long Gibson houseboat. This is not, Stacy Rae told me, a floating house that needs to be towed, like the one for sale for $499,000. Hers has an engine and wheel. There aren’t a ton of those in Rhode Island.

And only a few of Stacy Rae’s neighbors live here on their regular boats. Most have land residences.

All Stacy Rae has is her Gibson Twin Crusader.

She adds that the other seven or eight liveaboards in the marina are men.

“You have to have tough skin,” says Stacy Rae. “A lot of it is being able to adjust to winter.”

When the cold hits, she explained, the marina turns off the water. She could fill up her cistern, but that still risks frozen lines, so off-season, she uses paper plates, bottled water for coffee and the dock bathroom shower.

“I was raised by my father as a tomboy,” says Stacy Rae. “I have female friends who are like, ‘How do you do it?’ They hear my stories, and are like, ‘Nope.’”

Nor are there many male boat owners here who tough out the whole winter.

“One guy tried,” said Stacy Rae, “but after a month, he threw the towel in. Too cold. Too much aggravation.”

But it’s worth it to her to have her own affordable place.

Dock rates are only $100 a foot with water and electric included for the whole six warmer months, so Stacy pays around $5,000 total that half of the year. During the colder six months, it’s $40 a foot with no utilities, so Stacy pays for her own electricity.

Earlier in her work life, Stacy Rae was a CVS shift supervisor, then, a decade ago, she switched to airport bartender, first at Wolfgang Puck, now at Providence Provisions.

Her dad, a former welder who wintered in Florida, had a houseboat of his own at the Providence Marina. Stacy Rae would often walk there from her East Providence apartment to see him. Sadly, he died at age 70 in July 2019.

When Provisions shut down for COVID not long after that, it left Stacy Rae in a squeeze.

“I had to make a choice,” she said, “my dad’s boat or an apartment.”

She went with the boat.

But it was a fixer-upper

“It had issues,” she said. “In the winter, no matter how hard I tried to heat it, I could still see my breath.”

Yet she loved the liveaboard life.

One day, on Facebook marketplace, Stacy Rae came across a Gibson houseboat for sale docked near New Bedford. It was cheaper than a condo. So, she sold her dad’s boat last October and bought the Gibson, motoring it across the Massachusetts SouthCoast, around Newport and through the hurricane barrier to her current spot on the Providence Marina.

That’s been her home ever since, with a neighbor boat on one side and the Providence fire boat on the other.

Stacy is among a declining Rhode Island species, with Newport, North Kingstown and other towns trying to ban houseboats, even pushing for a state law to give them more power to do it.

Some claim that houseboats interrupt the classic beauty of a harbor of regular boats, though I’ll tell you that Stacy’s blends right in. There are also worries they could spread, many as Airbnbs, taking up too much space. Other opponents say houseboats overuse services such as waste disposal, but Keith Anderson, manager of the Providence Marina, says he hasn’t found that.

Still, because of the unpredictable moves to ban, tax or restrict them, the Providence Marina no longer takes new ones, so it’s just the half-dozen or so now there.

But as manager, Keith is happy to have houseboat folks like Stacy Rae.

“They’re great people,” he says. “They’re my eyes and ears. It’s a good mix for us.”

As Stacy Rae and I chatted, a boat playing loud music cruised by, heading to Narragansett Bay. It got me asking about the noise factor — the Hot Club is just yards away and open until 1 a.m. weekdays, 2 a.m. on weekends, usually with a DJ.

Stacy Rae says she doesn’t mind it. Mondays can be tough because that’s karaoke night, but regular music she can handle.

Wouldn’t an apartment somewhere be preferable?

“Oh God, never,” said Stacy Rae. “No matter how loud these bars get, I sleep better on a boat than I do on land."

I asked why.

“I think it’s the motion,” she explained. “The boat rocks me to sleep. Honestly, the harder it rocks the more I sleep. There was a heck of a storm in December. People asked, ‘How was the storm?’ I don’t know. I slept through it.”

It could be that Stacy Rae’s schedule is often exhausting. She works from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the airport and often performs later with the Providence Drum Troupe, a flamboyant, wildly dressed ensemble that plays parades and a ton of other venues, including the Providence Pedestrian Bridge. Stacy Rae is usually the one twirling in a winged costume while carrying a staff with either fire at the end or an LED light.

For fun, she’ll sometimes cruise up and down the Providence River on her dinghy, and a few times each summer she motors her whole “house” onto the Bay. It gets a lot of stares.

“People are like, ‘It moves,’” she says. “Yes, I move.”

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She proudly shows me her home — a big galley, bathroom with a separate shower and a “cuddy” space downstairs with two queens and a half bath.

How often does she have guests?

Stacy Rae smiles. “Too often.”

Her bedroom is up top, with windows catching a cool Bay breeze even on hot nights.

“I use AC maybe twice a year,” she says.

At that, a long-bearded neighbor stops by – Billy Beggs, 53, who owns a sport fishing boat here, as well as the Boneyard Barbeque in Seekonk, Massachusetts. He also splits the rent on an apartment with his audiologist girlfriend. But he lives often on his boat.

“Can’t take the salt out of the blood,” Billy says.

When I asked him what makes Stacy Rae tick, it got a smile.

“She dances to the beat of her own drummer,” he says.

He adds that she’s also known as the marina constant, the person you can ask to borrow a wrench or keep an eye on your boat when you’re gone.

Then Stacy Rae’s significant other, Jeff O’Neill, 54, stopped in. He works for an attorney and is known as “Rev,” since he's an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. He has married more than 200 couples, mostly same-sex because he emerged as a go-to officiant after performing the first non-courthouse same-sex wedding when it became legal in Massachusetts.

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I asked Jeff how he likes occasional life on a houseboat in the Providence River.

“It’s interesting,” he said. “In the winter, you’re coming onto a freezing cold boat, you turn on the space heaters …”

“Oh, you like it,” said Stacy Rae.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Rev agreed. “And you feel like you’re more part of the city here.”

As for his take on Stacy Rae: “She lives in the moment better than anybody I know. Always watching out for everyone. She’s the mother of the marina.”

Before I left, we sat on the back deck off her bedroom. It has a wide-open view of the river, as well as a nice city vibe. And refreshing breezes. And a sense of freedom you don’t get on land.

Stacy Rae Seminick sat there looking out at her world.

It’s not a bad world.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Stacy Rae Seminick lives on a houseboat year-round in Providence