Multi-level home with lake views and home office hits the market

Read article : Multi-level home with lake views and home office hits the market

79 Camelot Place, Bridgeman Downs.

After 14 years at her Bridgeman Downs home, Illse Tsung has made the move to the Gold Coast.

Looking for a sea change with her family, Mrs Tsung said the six-bedroom, three-bathroom home at 79 Camelot Place was the “perfect family home”.

“We have three children and the youngest was born here,” Mrs Tsung said.

79 Camelot Place, Bridgeman Downs.

Mrs Tsung said the home was already built when they moved in. They added extensions later on.

The multi-level architect- designed property is on 0.97ha and has been positioned with a north-easterly aspect, ensuring every room in the house, where practical, has lake views. Mrs Tsung said she loved the proximity of the water and said the open space had an amazing feel to it.

“When we first walked on the balcony, we absolutely loved it,” she said.

“This really has been a great entertainment house.”

79 Camelot Place, Bridgeman Downs.

The main bedroom on the most upper level of the three-storey home is a private oasis, taking full advantage of the views, with walls of glass and a glass-edged balcony.

An ensuite with double glass vanities, corner bath and frameless glass shower is timeless in design. The main level of the home has a further three bedrooms all with built-ins, also with lake views.

79 Camelot Place, Bridgeman Downs.

At the other end of the home, on its own level, is the guest suite, with a walk-in robe.

To keep the family entertained, there is a huge, purpose-designed media/theatre room, set well away from the living areas.

79 Camelot Place, Bridgeman Downs.

To further complement the home is a home office/study with its own private entrance from the street, self-contained with a powder room, which could be closed off from the home.

Mrs Tsung said the office was perfect to run their home business.

Dream Camper Floor Plan Contest

Read article : Dream Camper Floor Plan Contest

Dream Camper Floor Plan Contest – Part 2 http://www.truckcampermagazine.com/news/dream-camper-floor-plan-contest-part-2/"> Dream Camper Floor Plan Contest – Part 2&BODY=I found this article interesting and thought of sharing it with you. Check it out: http://www.truckcampermagazine.com/news/dream-camper-floor-plan-contest-part-2/"> 12 more reader submitted dream floor plans including raw concepts, wild ideas, and subtle refinements.  And the winner of the first ever dream truck camper floor plan contest is… Just last week we visited a prominent truck camper manufacturer and the subject of our dream camper floor plan contest came up.  We talked with great excitement about the variety of ideas our readers were presenting, and encouraged them to study the plans when they debuted.  No, we didn’t give them a sneak peak.  It’s more fun to tease. None of the submitted designs, including mine, are anywhere near production ready.  That was never the intention or spirit of this contest, nor is it possible without delving into details like plumbing, electrical, and code compliance.

The true potential of this contest is to give truck camper users from around the United States, Canada, and the world the opportunity to directly inspire professional truck camper design teams.  You know, the folks responsible for the truck campers you see debut here on Truck Camper Magazine, at RV shows, and dealer lots?  This was your shot to show them your big idea, and possibly change the course of truck camper design history.

I know, crazy talk.  Then again, crazier things have happened.  I’m going to lobby the industry to take your designs and ideas seriously, as I do with our bi-annual truck camper survey coming up this fall.  Together, we will change the course of campers.

Far be it for us to determine who should win the best dream camper floor plan, except that’s exactly what we had to do.  This is, after all, a contest, and we are the big cheese, cheesette, and cheese-cat for this electron-only magazine.  After considerable review, and a tail gesture we interpreted as positive, we have a winner.

The winner of the first ever dream truck camper floor plan contest is…

Karl Pettitt, Elmhurst, Illinois – Winner

Above: Click to enlarge this floor plan and the others below to see them bigger.

Although I don’t currently own a truck camper, I would like to in the future.  I often think of what an ideal floor plan would be so this was a fun exercise.  I first did the layout in a program that was to scale.  The dimensions should be pretty accurate.

The floor length is 11-feet.  The total length is 19-feet, 9-inches.  The width is 8-feet.  It’s a single-slide, dry bath, flatbed model.

Although there are a few flatbed model campers on the market, I think there is a great deal of room for more.  Specifically, I think there is room for a larger model that takes full advantage of the ability to place the door anywhere.

To this end, I created a floor plan layout that places the door towards the front of the curb side of the camper.  This allows for greater flexibility in the placement of the bathroom, which I put across the entire rear of the camper.

The slide allows space for both a dinette and a small couch that can turn into a bed.  Placement of the kitchen towards the front, along with the heaviest components such as the fresh water tank, battery bank, and propane tanks, will help in keeping the center of gravity as close to the front as possible.

The placement of the entertainment center allows for viewing either on the main floor or the cabover.  There is overhead storage above the kitchen and couch that makes up for the lack of floor cabinets.  There is also ample windows allowing light in from either side of the camper as well as views.  I think this would make an ideal camper for a family with the potential to sleep up to six people without the use of a bunk.

#16 – David Miller, Branson, Missouri – Honorable Mention

My camper is designed with the premise that the most important things about a truck camper use are (1) the nice, soft, queen bed for sleeping, and (2) the nice bathroom for showering; not a wet bath.

The dining aspect needs less emphasis because, typically, the meals are simple and small.  In most cases, weather dependent, we eat outside at the picnic table.  Thus there is no need for a large dining table.

There is also no need to accommodate guests for sleeping.  If the grandkids are camping with us, they will sleep in a tent outside.  The concept of having the table convert to a bed is unnecessary, and a waste of space for us.

The attached drawing is for a non-slide design to fit a full-size short bed pickup.  I figure this camper will hang over the back of a 6’6” truck bed by approximately 27-inches.

Here are the wonderful features of my perfect truck camper:

It has a dry bath and shower.  This is extremely important.

The dining area has been reduced in size to only seat two adults.  The table is curved and the back of the seat cushion is curved to give the feeling and seating of a corner booth in a restaurant.  The only slight difficulty is that the person who sits down first will have to slide in and cannot get back out until the other person stands up, but, that is just like a corner booth in a restaurant and won’t be too much of a hassle.

There is a closet on both sides of the bed in addition to the foot lockers.  The television is mounted above the table, on the wall of the dry shower.

As you can see, the bed and the dry shower get the most emphasis, and the dining facilities are minimized.  It’s the perfect camper for two adults who want to shower every day after a good nights sleep.

#17 – Jake Schultz, Washington – Honorable Mention

A Folding Camper for the Ford Ranger

This camper is designed to be less than 780 pounds to work within the payload limit of a Ford Ranger.  It’s also designed to be 64-inches wide, with a maximum travel height of 82-inches.  These dimensions allow the camper to fit into a standard 84-inch garage in the folded configuration.

The camper features a full stand-up heigh interior of 76-inches, as shown.  A sun-dome could be added for an additional three-inches of interior height.

The camper has a double-pivot folding hard wall roof and sides with an open and panoramic cabin.

The camper can be used in one of four configurations:

1. Wide open with magnificent panoramic views to the aft sides and back.

2. Open to the aft sides and back, with screen netting in place.

3. Polycarbonate window panels in place (inboard of netting) for inclement weather.

4. Window panels in place and privacy curtains on the interior.

There would be comfortable seating for two at the dinette with the cushions angled slightly inward to account for the wheel well.

The camper would feature a modified full-size bed available at all times.  There would be a 24-inch cabinet for hanging clothes under the foot of the bed.

To save weight, the roof would be built for structure and snow loads only, not to stand on. The floor would be to stand on only if the camper is on the ground or in the bed of the truck, again to save weight.

There would be no jack stands.  The camper is suspended from the owner’s home garage root trusses to remove and store.

There would be an ice chest under one seat and Porta-Potti under the other.  There would be no refrigeration systems or black water tank.

All systems are in one four-foot module along the right side for minimum weight and system run lengths.  The module contains the propane tank, propane heater, two-burner stove, sink, fresh water tank, grey water tank, battery, converter, inverter, and small item storage.

#18 – Mark Larson, Phoenix, Arizona – Honorable Mention

This is my drawing for one of my dream campers.  Please excuse the poor scale on the toilet, lavatory, and kitchen sink.

I know this would be better as a flatbed model because of the side aisle going to the cabover and the location of the shower.  It could also be an above the bed rail model.  I’m with you wanting a camper with no slide outs.  You had a great design of your own.

#19 – Kari Miller, Branson, Missouri – Honorable Mention

My truck camper is the best design ever.  Here are the great features:

1. There is actually a solid wall between the over cab bedroom and the rest of the camper.  This creates total privacy, similar to a fifth wheel with an isolated separate bedroom.

2. The step to the bedroom is offset so there is not direct line of sight into the private bedroom.

3. There is room at the foot of the queen-size bed to access the closet and a real two-drawer dresser, which is what is needed for storing clothes in a camper.

4. A narrow, but deep and tall closet is behind the refrigerator is accessed from the step.

5. Instead of wasting room on a full table top and a table that converts to an unnecessary bed, this camper has a bar top for dining.  The seating consists of two bar stools which can be clamped down for traveling.  People spend many hours sitting on a bar stool so, obviously, these would be comfortable.  Plus, for most eating situations, people will either sit outside at the picnic table, or go out to eat at a restaurant.  There is a big window over the bar top so it would be pleasant sitting.

6. There is a slide-out pantry between the bar top and the range

7. The bathroom has a dry shower, which is important.

8. This camper should fit in a full-size short-bed pickup.  There are no slides, and it is
hard-sided.

#20 – Mike Cianci, Loveland, Colorado

Here’s my plan.  It’s fairly basic.  I chose a wet bath because it’s easier to clean.  Put it in the forward section near the wardrobe with a privacy curtain so nobody has to see your business.  And it’s easier to keep the bed/bath/dressing area cleaner.

I chose wardrobes with shelves or drawers which is more practical than hanging closets.  Who is bringing their tux and ball gown while truck camping?  There are overhead bins throughout where practical.

There would be LED lights, two batteries on a movable tray, and a small solar setup.  Only simple shades are necessary; no cornice, or valance boxes around the windows.

There would be 12-volt and 110 AC throughout, two Fantastic fans – one in the bedroom and kitchen – and an air conditioner   There would be a full-size skylight/dome in the bath with a side wall exhaust vent.

The sofa could be a jack knife-style, or have storage underneath.  And it would have two pull-out tray tables mounted in or adjacent to the armrest.  Plus it would pivot for easy egress from the sofa while eating or using computer, similar to tray tables on airliners in first class.

The television would be on standard pivot for bedroom and living room viewing, and would recess in a cabinet above the slide out pantry.  The rear exit door would have a platform deck for easy entry/egress.

#21 – Kevin Pinassi, New York, New York

#22 – John Wells, Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania

My design is a modification of the Chalet Ascent S100F, a limited production model (six total!) that Chalet discontinued to pursue production of their more profitable double and triple-slide models.  We love ours because it is completely usable with the slide in or out.

It has huge floorspace when the slide is out for entertaining friends and for ladies to dress in Civil War hoops (don’t ask).  The front bath allows a full height pleated curtain immediately behind the dinette to be drawn across to create a dressing room with access to bath, bed, and wardrobe.

There are no appliances in the slide, minimizing slide-out weight, and wear and tear on electrical and gas connections while maximizing efficiency of the refrigerator.  While we love our camper, please allow me to debut … drum roll… The Wellspring S110F.

My modifications to Chalet’s original design are as follows:

There would be 10-inches of increased length in the main cabin.  On the slide-out side, this extra wall space at the junction of the overcab and cabin strengthens the exterior at the crucial front corner tie-down.  We have already noticed flexing at this point and have taken steps to greatly reinforce this important structural location.  On the kitchen side, this extra 10-inches allows an increase in much-needed counter space, as well as under and over cabinetry.

I would also add about four to five inches to the side-to-side width of the wet bath.  The wardrobe doors and bathroom door would still function even with the slide in.

Additionally, I’d add half-penguin cabinets to the night stands at either side of the bed in the nose of the overcab.  These units would be open-shelved on the sides, half-depth and about 3/4 height, with a small rail or lip on the shelves and top edge to keep books, phones, clock, etc from falling out during travel.

I’d also add a three drawer cabinet with open top shelf and top rail at the foot of the bed on the bathroom side.  I’ve avoided the side hampers as I feel they add significantly to the difficulty of changing the bedclothes, though they could be added quite easily as an option.

#23 – Bob Dold, Monson, Massachusetts

Attached is my submission for the dream floor plan contest.  It is based off an EarthRoamer layout modified with a fore/aft dinette and an undercover slide-out compressor refrigerator chest.  I chose the slide-out compressor fridge since they are more efficient than a three-way refrigerator, and it allows for additional counter space.

One of my favorite features of the EarthRoamer plan is how the closet and bathroom doors can be opened and secured to provide a changing area outside the wet bath with access to the closet.  The wet bath has a wooded floor grate to provide a cleaner surface for the bath when the shower isn’t being used.

Access to the toilet cassette is through the rear storage door which drops down and can be used as a counter when cooking outside.  Another door above the horizontal door to the left of the spare tire can be used to store chairs and other lighter items out of the weather.

I prefer the side entry design as it allows the entire back wall to be used for storage and it allows access to the camper from the curbside when parked without having to remove bikes/trailers from the back of the camper.

The pantry to the left of the closet would be a bank of drawers with a window air conditioner unit above to provide for cool air without the expense and height of a roof mounted unit.  The dinette would be a little under three feet wide and can convert to a single bed if needed.

Large awning windows on either side provide lots of light and views with storage cabinets above them (not shown).  The overcab queen bed runs north/south to allow for getting out of bed without having to climb over your significant other, and has windows on both sides along with a skylight/Fantastic fan for good ventilation while sleeping.

Another feature I don’t see included on many campers any more is a pass through.  I would like the ability to stealth camp and having the pass through allows one to enter and exit the camper without having to go outside.

#24 – Floyd Schotel, Williams Lake, British Columbia

I’ve been dreaming up my ideal truck camper for a little while now, so you’re design contest is a great opportunity to share my napkin sketches!

For fuel efficiency, handling, and stealthiness, my ideal truck camper would be a low profile pop-up design to fit a 6.5-foot bed, full-size pickup.

The camper body extends past the bumper, dropping down for a low step-in side door.  Inside steps lead to the floor height.  This way the back of the camper is open to mount bikes, fuel, spares etc.  Also, the side door is a natural access to the curb or side picnic area.

Most of the windows are in the soft sides of the pop-up.  That way the camper will be more secure when in the locked down position.  In fact, the camper may look more like a service truck than a camper when in travel mode.

I’d keep the camper as small and tight to the truck as possible.  To keep things simple, I can do without a toilet/black tank, but a collapsable shower would be nice.

This camper is designed for boondocking and overland excursions as well as urban stealth camping.  I love the idea of taking my bed and a hot shower with me in a compact camper for a road trip.  No need to stress about finding a hotel, and a meal can be fixed anywhere, pronto!

#25 – Glenn Yauney, Milwaukie, Oregon

Here is an idea of a dream truck camper floor plan.   We started with the floor plan of a 1140 Arctic Fox.   We added a rear slide-out and side entry.

We would prefer a camper with both a rear and a side slide-out.  When towing a trailer, a rear door entry is awkward, thus we prefer a side entry into the camper rather than a rear entry design.   We added a large closet in the rear slide-out opposite the entry door for boots, outdoor clothes, etc.

Storage space is also at a premium, so I propose one that has both ample wardrobe closets and storage space equipped with larger drawers.  You can’t have too much storage space.

Exterior storage isn’t shown, but basement and exterior storage are also a must.

#26 – TJ and Kelly Kretschmar, Kansas City, Kansas

I am a mechanical engineer and have the ability to convert .pdf’s to CAD.  The Unimog part of the drawing can be found in the technical manual from Mercedes Benz website.  I printed the drawing to .pdf, then converted it to CAD.  I then printed the drawing for the Pangea concept and converted the drawing to CAD.

The reason I choose to draw this concept in CAD was to see if it was physically possible to put a garage bay in an expedition vehicle, and to incorporate my own ideas into the same space that would fit on a Unimog chassis with a single rear axle.

I deleted the interior of the lower living area so I could insert my own concept.  The items that I used from the original GXV drawing are the exterior walls, entry door, cassette toilet, and spare tires.  The loft area and access stairway is also GXV’s design, only with one bed instead of the two indicated in their drawing.

I used the Unimog drawing to make sure the entry door, center of gravity, and departure angle were going to work with the design.

We like the Pangea Lifting roof on a Unimog concept, but wanted it to double as a toy hauler.  We put one bed in the loft area to give the dinette area a sense of a vaulted ceiling.  The unit can be used in the down position for extreme cold weather.  The garage door folds down allowing access to spare tires.  The ATV slide out is similar to a Tommy Lift gate.

The camper would be able to detach with its own hydraulic jacks and allow for the installation of a dump bed.

This, of course, is just a dream.  For now our 1994 Hallmark Ute and 2006 Nissan Titan will have to suffice.

Related Items:

Used 2001 Intermarine Motor Yacht, Portsmouth, Va - 33401

Read article : Used 2001 Intermarine Motor Yacht, Portsmouth, Va - 33401

Measurements

• Cruising Speed: 12 kn
• Max Speed: 15 kn    
• Fuel Tanks Capacity: 7443 gal
• LOA:118
• Beam:  23'6"
• Max Draft: 6 ft 5 in  
• Fresh Water Tanks Capacity: 1500 gal
• Number of Cabins: 5 cabins plus 4 crew cabins

Accommodations

Sleeps up to 10 Guests in 5 Staterooms plus up to 7 crew in 4 cabins.

Boarding from the large swim platform, molded stairs port and starboard lead to the expansive AFT DECK with bench seating aft, twin varnished teak dining tables on pedestals with additional teak chairs and a fully equipped L-shaped wet bar with custom Stainless bar stools; the ideal location for alfresco dining or enjoying libation after a day playing with SAVANNAHs many water toys. Molded stairs to port lead to the sundeck while access is also provided to the main salon.

The main SALON offers a timeless blend of old world craftsmanship with modern fabrics, as directed by award winning designer Luis DeBasto, featuring American Cherry woodwork and generous windows allowing for maximum visibility to your surroundings. Occasional chairs, large sofa, coffee table and gaming table with chairs provides multiple seating groups while a full service bar along the forward bulkhead provides another conversation area while insuring no guest ever goes thirsty! Generous storage is found within the outboard cabinetry of the salon while the well- equipped entertainment center will keep both audiophiles and movie watchers happy.

The Day Head/Powder Room is forward to port, while moving forward from the salon along the starboard side leads to the guest accommodation stairwell, raised pilothouse and formal DINING SALON with the spacious galley immediately forward; port and starboard doors provide access to the forward side-decks. The GALLEY features all the appliances, storage and counter space to please the most demanding Chef, while providing the service crew the necessary space to assist without interfering. A large banquette table with seating provides an intimate location for morning coffee or learning the latest cooking techniques from your Chef. A stairwell forward to starboard leads down to the crew quarters with four separate crew cabins (2 of which are en-suite & 2 share a large bath).

The PILOTHOUSE provides all the latest electronics for safe and comfortable cruising in any weather or cruising location you plan to visit. Wonderful visibility, good storage and an observation lounge will keep the Captain happy while providing the maximum level of safety to crew and guests alike. Steps leading to the sliding hatch allow access to the immense flying bridge/sundeck.

Stepping down the GUEST ACCOMMODATIONS stairs gives access to the accommodations foyer. The MASTER STATEROOM is forward, taking advantage of the yachts full beam and providing a King pedestal berth, three hanging wardrobes and drawer storage throughout. Twin nightstands with sconce lighting, entertainment center and a seated vanity provide the most luxurious setting while His & Hers baths forward meet at the oversized, glass walled twin shower, while separate vanities with storage and sink and twin toilettes are surrounded by rich woodwork and Italian marbles.

To port off the foyer is a TWIN GUEST STATEROOM with two twin berths, nightstand, wardrobe storage and en-suite bath with shower, vanity with sink and storage and toilette.

Starboard of the foyer is a guest laundry center and a stateroom offering upper and lower bunk beds with wardrobe storage and en-suite bath with shower, vanity with sink and storage and toilette. There is optional joinery available that allows this area to be converted to a full laundry room with commercial rolling iron and storage, if desired.

Aft off the foyer is PORT and STARBOARD GUEST STATEROOMS, the port stateroom offering wardrobe storage twin nightstands and twin lower berths that may be joined to form a Queen berth when desired; the en-suite bath provides shower, vanity with sink and storage and toilette. The starboard stateroom offers a Queen berth with twin nightstands, wardrobe storage and en-suite bath providing shower, vanity with sink and storage and toilette.

The FLYING BRIDGE/SUNDECK fea

Construction

Fiberglass hull and superstructure with teak aft deck.

Capacities

• Fuel Capacity: 7,443 US Gallons (28,171 liters)
• Water Capacity: 1,500 US Gallons ( 5,677 liters)
• Watermakers: (1) Neptune 2,400 US Gallons per day
• Lube Oil: 100 US Gallons (378.5 liters)
• Waste Oil: Grey: 453 US Gallons
• Waste Water: Black: 260 US Gallons plus Headhunter Tidal Wave type II MSD
• Speed Consumption per hours Range RPM
  15.0 Knots 80 US Gallons 1200 nm 2,300
  12.0 Knots 60 US Gallons 1,400 nm 1,700
  10.0 Knots 25 US Gallons 2,400 1,200

Other Machinery

• Watermaker: FCI 2400 GPD model# NM 254263-SS  
• Stabilizers: Naiad 12sqft    
• Bow Thruster: Naiad 16 LHT; 62hp    
• Steering System: Jastram B2-300-12-2-35  
• Emergency Steering: Jastram electro-hydraulic dual system  
• Fuel Separator: Dual Racor 1000s (Mains)  
• Racor 500s (Gems)    
• Filtration: Parker RVSF-1 Transfer filter  
• Sewage System: Parker RVSF-1 Transfer filter  
• Fresh Water System: (2) Headhunter Mach5  
• Bilge Water System: Heli-Sep 500 OCD    
• Helm Control: (3) (Pilothouse, Port & Starboard Flybridge)Anchutz Tiller Follow-up (Pilothouse & Flybridge), (2) 220v Bilge Pumps, DC bilge pumps w/ alarms throughout, Generator Dry Stack Exhaust Bypass; Kobelt engine controls    
  

Machinery

• Main Engines: (2) Caterpillar 3412C @ 1,350hp each
• Engine Hours: 0 - Complete Overhaul 2/2017
• Gearboxes: ZF BW255A, Ratio: 2.960:1

Generators and Electricity

• Output: 120/208; 3 Phase, 60Hz
• Generators: (2) 55Kw Northern Lights generators @ 1,800 rpm
• Generator Hours: 750/1100 SMOH
• Shore Power: Atlas Smart Box SB100-22, Atlas Classic Power Converter
• Batteries: Main Engines-(2) 24 volt 4D gel cell (alternator plus Sentry 24 volt 50 amp charger)
• Generator Starting: (2) 24 volt 4D gel cell (alternator plus Senstry 24 volt 50 amp charger)
• General Service: (4) 6 volt gel cell = 24 (alternator plus Sentry 24 volt 80 amp charger)
• Emergency: (4) 6 volt gel cell = 24 volt (Mastervolt 24/50 amp charger)

Air Conditioning

• Type: Aqua Air; 20 tons; 264,000 BTU; 23 air handlers; fresh air make up; Aqua Air AQFAH 02C 200 CFM
• Misc.: All chillers 2014 or newer; All air handlers 2015

Communications

• SatCom(s): KVH V7 24 broadband system, plus Trac phone, 25 Mini-M (2008), Iridium with base station antenna +, PC connect card, Wi-Fi throughout.
• Telephone System: Panasonic KX-TD 1232 with/15 extensions
• Cellular Phone System: Tellular SX5E
• SSB: SEA 235
• VHF Fixed: (1) SEA156 (pilothouse) (2) Icom M604 (Pilothouse, Flybridge)
• Intercom System: (1) Standard Horizon Nova + (Galley)
• Ships Computer: Dell for navigation
• Ships Printer: Brother MFC-J4510DW
• Telefax: HP G-85
• Misc.: Dell work computer (doubles as back up nav computer)

Navigation System

• Radar #1: (2) Furuno 1500mk III X band with ARPA; 96nm (Pilothouse)
• Radar #2: Furuno FR 1731 slave radar with ARPA; 96nm (Flybridge)
• Autopilot: Raytheon Pilotstar D (Pilothouse) w/ repeater (Flybridge)
• GPS #1: Northstar 941X
• GPS #2: Furuno GP-37 DGPS w/ WAAS (Pilothouse)
• Plotter Software: Nobeltec VNS Max Pro (2008)
• Depth Sounder(s): (4) B&G HS 2000 multi-function (Pilothouse & Flybridge)
• Video Sounder: Furuno FCV-667
• Gyrocompass: Anschutz KVH Azimuth ADGC
• Magnetic Compass: 6" Danforth Constellation (Pilothouse)
• AIS: Simrad A150 Class B (Pilothouse)
• Navtex: Furuno NX 700 (Pilothouse)
• Wind Indicator: B&G analog wind indicator (Pilothouse)
• Speed Indicator: (4) B&G HS 2000 multi-function (Pilothouse & Flybridge)
• Misc: (2) 19" Dynex Monitors (Pilothouse)

Entertainment System

Video Equipment:

• TVs: (1) Panasonic 42 Flat Screen (Salon), (1) Samsung 32 Flat Screen (Aft Deck), (1) Sharp 31 Flat-Screen (Galley), (1) Samsung 26 Flat Screen (Master), (3) Samsung 21 Flat Screen (Port & Starboard Guest S/Rs)
• Audio Equipment: Audio/Visual systems upgraded to iPad 10.12
• Central Ships Audio: Sonos Speaker System (Salon, Aft Deck, Dining)
• VCRs: Sony SLV-M20HF (Salon, Master), Sony (Galley) built into TV
• DVDs: Acesonic BDK-2000 BluRay/Karaoke Player (Salon), Sony DVD/CD DVP-S330 (Master), (2) Samsung (Port & Starboard Guest S/R's), (1) Sony DA-2400ES (Master), Denon AVR 3313CI receiver (Salon), (1) Sony DA-2400ES (Master)

• Stereo's: Denon AVR 3313CI receiver (Salon), (1) Sony DA-2400ES (Master), Fusion MS-IP7001 (Flybridge), Stereo players w/CD (Crew, Galley, Guest S/R'S)
• IPod Stations:Throughout

Galley and Laundry Equipment

• Range: Miele 5 Burner Cooktop
• Oven: (1) Gaganau EB 388-610, (1) Miele
• Grill: Jenn-Air electric (Flybridge)
• Microwave: Kitchen Aid KCMS1555
• Refrigeration: GE Profile Performance side by side2-SubZero refrigerated drawers
• Freezer: Haier deep freeze (Flybridge)
• Icemaker(s): Electrolux Icon (Salon), U-Line Echelon (Aft Deck)
• Wine Cooler: Avanti (Salon)
• Small Fridge: Sub-Zero 249RP (Salon, (2) Flybridge, Aft Deck)
• Dishwasher: Hobart LX18H
• Misc. Galley: Cuisinart ice maker

Tenders and Toys

• Main Tender: 19 Zodiac Eclipse w/2007 Yamaha F150TXR 4-stroke
• Waverunners: (2) Yamaha VX Deluxe (2014)
• Dive Gear: (8) sets of dive equipment, (10) sets of snorkeling equipment
• Misc.: Jacuzzi on Flybridge for 6

Deck and Hull

• Anchor Windlass System: Maxwell VWL 600 hydraulic
• Anchors: Forfjord steel 350lbs, Fortress EX125
• Anchor Chain & Rode: 492 BBB 5/8; 250x1 rode, 20x5/8 BBB chain
• Aft Warping Capstans: (2) Maxwell VC3500 electric (Stern Quarters)
• Davit/Cranes: Nautical structures 3500lb VC3500
• Accommodation Ladders: Marquipt Sea Stair
• Passarelle: Nautical Structures 14 manual
• Spotlights: (2) ACR RCL100 spotlights with 4 control pads
• Exterior Showers: Swim Platform
• Swim Ladders: Custom Stainless Steel
• Misc.: Port and Starboard Aft Boarding Gates; Swim Platform Mooring, Whips; 3 Trumpet Khalenberg Horns; Boat Deck Lights

Security Equipment

• CCTV System: Elbex
• Cameras: (6) (Mast, Engine Room, Port & Starboard Aft Deck & Side Decks)
• Monitors: (3) 10 Orion, 10 Viore (Pilothouse) 15 Orion (Galley)
• Ships Security System: Yes
• Ship Safe: Yes
  
  

Fire Fighting Equipment

• Fire/Heat/Smoke Detectors: Throughout
• Fixed FM 200 System: FD 350A Sea Fire Agent FM200 12.99lbs,(Lazarette), Kidde 151lbs FM200 (Engine Room)
• Heat Detectors: Throughout
• Carbon Mon. Detectors: Throughout
• Fire Extinguishers: Throughout
• Seawater Fire Station: (4) stations (Lazarette, aft deck, stbd midship, foredeck)

Safety Equipment

• Life Rafts: (2) Givens 19 person (E-Plus)
• Life Rings: (4) Life Rings w/ ACR Bouy Lights
• EPRIB(s): ACR RLB-32, (2) Signature Fastfind Max-G
• Flares: Full U.S.C.G Safety Package
• Medical Kit: Yes

Remarks

Savannah has just undergone a complete main engine overhaul.  The interior carpeting and soft goods have been replaced in 2017.  Managed and maintained by her experienced captain and crew, Savannah has enjoyed constant upgrades and care.  Ideally suited for island cruising with her spacious layout and expansive exterior areas.  Quality American craftsmanship, composite construction, ABS classification and her top shelf equipment list make Savannah a MUST SEE!

Exclusions

• Detailed list of Exclusions provided upon request.

DisclaimerThe Company offers the details of this vessel in good faith but cannot guarantee or warrant the accuracy of this information nor warrant the condition of the vessel. A buyer should instruct his agents, or his surveyors, to investigate such details as the buyer desires validated. This vessel is offered subject to prior sale, price change, or withdrawal without notice.

Word Wenches: Keeping it Clean

Read article : Word Wenches: Keeping it Clean

Joanna here, talking about Georgian and Regency bathtubs and the joys of getting clean. 
 
There is a general view that historical people were rather dirty, there being a dearth of historical folks getting up at six and grabbing a bar of soap and popping in to warble un bel dì vedremo in the shower.  I'm afraid we all feel rather smug about our acres of colored tile with the running hot and cold.

How clean were they?  The townsfolks as they merrily hung aristos from the lamposts, Ninon de l'Enclos, Voltaire, (Did you know Ninon left money in her will for the 9-year-old Voltaire to buy books?) Napoleon, Jane Austen, the kitchenmaid grinding coffee in the morning? How clean were they?

This is a case where the written historical record tends to desert us, somewhat, as folks do not record in their diary, "I got up and Mary-the-perky-maid brought me six liters of water and I washed my face, hands, underarms and, last off, various parts south of the waistband." any more than we text to our BFFs to say we've had a morning shower.

So we end up making some 'best guesses' about this whole business.

You had your everyday getting clean.  You had your getting wet for recreational purposes. And you had your washing the body to treat diseases.

This last one gets written about a lot in a 'I went to the baths to see if I could get rid of this nasty skin condition' or 'the physician prescribed a course of cold baths with sulfur powder in them and I feel much better now that I have stopped' sorta way.  Marat, you will recall, was in exactly such a medicinal bath when Charlotte Corday brought it, and him, to an abrupt end with a knife.

Medicinal Baths and Thermal Spas.  The mineral baths at Bath and other spa towns provided an immersion intended to improve the health, not so much wash the body, though it did that too.  Some places there were separate baths for men and women.  Some places, everybody bathed together.
They went into the water dressed. Wearing their periwigs and bonnets.  I should think the fumes did neither periwigs nor bonnets much good, frankly.

Up at four o’clock, being by appointment called up to the Cross Bath . . .  very fine ladies; and the manner pretty enough, only methinks it cannot be clean to go so many bodies together in the same water. Good conversation among them that are acquainted here, and stay together. Strange to see how hot the water is; and in some places, though this is the most temperate bath, the springs so hot as the feet not able to endure. . . . Carried away, wrapped in a sheet, and in a chair, home; and there one after another thus carried, I staying above two hours in the water, home to bed, sweating for an hour.
         Pepys' Diary

Let us leave the whole subject of medicinal baths very quickly, as it is generally unpleasant, even if you're not getting stabbed.

Though I should point out that folks still do this medicinal bath bit, in the way of putting baking soda in a bath for some poor sufferer from poison ivy, and modern herb baths hold anything from lavender to chamomile and thyme.  The 'it's good for you' bath is not going to disappear anytime soon.

Out in the Fresh Air.  The opposite of taking a bath because it was good for you was getting wet just for the fun of it.  Any warm day would probably see the local youths sporting in the local river.  There are a good many references to folks doing exactly this -- including a Paris ordinance forbidding nude bathing in the Seine, but only near the bridges -- to avoid the scandalizing the public.

Pepys, in his diary, notes the sad death of a young boy bathing in the Thames.
and at Somerset-stairs do understand that a boy is newly drowned, washing himself there, and they cannot find his body.

Or this Englishman travelling in America.
Early the next morning, my kind, attentive host entered into my bedroom and inquired if I should like to take a bath. I replied in the affirmative, and immediately rising, was conducted to one in an adjoining field which is filled by a small brook and is therefore always fresh.
          A summary view of America, Isaac Candler  1824

Period pictures are not an entirely reliable guide to actual practice.  Showing folks bathing in pools and rivers is a great excuse to paint nekkid people, after all.  But from an extensive personal survey,it looks like bathing -- where folks actually got wet all over as opposed to wading in the water -- tended to be young people and they were segregated into women and men.  

Bathing in the sea, for fun and medical benefit, became fashionable in the Eighteenth Century, with 'bathing machines' on offer from mid century. 

The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
Which it constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes-
A sentiment open to doubt.
          Lewis Carroll

Bathing machines were high-wheeled wagons, with a canvas or wood structure on top, towed from the shore into the sea. 

Image to yourself a small, snug, wooden chamber, fixed upon a wheel-carriage, having a door at each  end, and on each side a little window above, a bench below – The bather, ascending into this apartment by wooden steps, shuts himself in, and begins to undress, while the attendant yokes a horse to the end next the sea, and draws thecarriage forwards, till the surface of the water is on a level with the floor of the dressing-room, then he  moves and fixes the horse to the other end – The person within being stripped, opens the door to the sea-ward, where he finds the guide ready, and plunges headlong into the water – After having bathed, he re-ascends into the apartment, by the steps which had been shifted for that purpose, and puts on his clothes at his leisure, while the carriage is drawn back again upon the dry land; so that he has nothing further to do, but to open the door, and come down as he went up.
                                   Tobias Smollett  1771

Men plunged into the waves starkers.  Small children, of course, went into the water naked, as they do in European countries today.  Women wore a long flannel shift, sometimes with lead weights sewn into the hem to keep the skirts from floating up.

In all this bathing, women took to one end of the beach and men the other, so modesty was maintained, in any case.  Hefty and agile attendants supervised so folks didn't drown, a real possibility when wrapped in several yards of soaking flannel, I should imagine.  

But how did people wash? I hear you asking.  How did they keep clean?

Public Baths.  In France, the custom of public bath houses, cheap, respectable and widely available, never died out.  This was an amazement and joy to travelling Englishmen and women who have left us detailed records of the process since this was something they did not have at home. 

Paris baths had private rooms with hot and cold running water, big tubs, fireplaces, nicely heated robes and towels, waitresses offering coffee and drinks, and a selection of bath oils and bath herbs.  There were also bathin g pools for both men and women and, in one bath on the Seine, swimming lessons for both.
I'm surprised English folks every went home again.

Meanwhile . . . at home. In England, in this period, folks did their actual getting clean by sponging off with a pitcher of water and a little basin on their dresser, or by immersing themselves in a tub not too different from a modern bath tub, or by standing in a smallish tub on the floor and washing with a pitcher of water.

The habit of washing the body and the introduction of wash basins and portable bath tubs began to spread among wealthy households in the late 18th century.
     The Family, Sex & Marriage in England 1500-1800 Laurence Stone

You had yer bath tubs.

I think and feel that, after a day's bard riding, there is no luxury comparable with a 'warm bath—it is so grateful and refreshing, and disputes the title of "tired nature's sweet restorer" with sleep
The Inspector, literary magazine and review, Volume 2

These were not necessarily in a 'bathroom'. 

The idea of having a room devoted to washing in a tub goes right back to the Seventeenth Century.  Pepys mentions such a bath in a private home.

Thence with Mr. Povy home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. And after dinner up and down to see his house. . . .  his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of his house, good pictures, and his manner of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one man in all my life.

But this would have been rare.  Rooms devoted to bathing were for palaces and the grandest mansions.

Moveable tub baths were more common.
What folks of middling means did when they wanted to take a bath was fire up the hearth in their bedroom, pull a screen round to close off the drafts, and send for a tub. 

And water.  They had 'running water' of a sort.  They sent a footman to run and get it.  It came up in biggish cans, generally one hot and one cold.  A housemaid might linger nearby and keep a kettle on the fire and add more hot water from time to time as the bath cooled.
This process was what you might call, labor intensive.  Water and bath hauling was done by footmen.

Warning:  Author anecdote time.  My father grew up in a house with exactly this kind of 'running water'.  His job was to go to the well and carry in all the water used for cooking, cleaning, bathing and washing for a household of ten people.  It will come as no surprise that he ran away to sea.

How common were these tub baths?

Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of these genial friends to cleanliness and comfort (bath tubs).
           The Mirror of Graces (1811) 

So the British may have been well behind their continental counterparts in the matter of home bath tubs, just as they were in matter of public baths.

And when there was a tub in the house, it's worth noting that its use involved a whole production.  Boiling water, carting it upstairs, and then carting it down again after use.  I wonder how many of the ordinary gentry folk would have seen this as a daily necessity when you could get just as clean with . . .

Basin and Pitcher.  This was the standard wash equipment all through the period.  

Washing with a pitcher of water would be part of the morning routine, or undertaken again after a long day of work or play.  This was what you'd expect to find waiting for you in a decent inn.  This was the normal way folks got clean. 

Pitchers held about the largest amount of water one person could easily manage to pour.  Call it one to two gallons.  (Four to eight liters.)  You wet a towel or flannel and washed yourself, using the basin to catch the used water. Or you might pour the water in and splash it on yourself. 

The towels, by the way, weren't the fluffy terry cloth we think of today when we say towel.  That's mid-nineteenth century fabric.  Our Georgian and Regency folks used woven linen to dry off. 

The soap would most likely have been spherical, about the size to fit in the palm of the hand, because that's how it would have been form -- piece by piece between the palms of the hand.  Your character might have called this a 'wash ball'.  

It would be kept in a soap ball holder on the washstand. After the 1790's the soap might have been 'Pear's Soap', which was transparent and flower scented. And . . . There might be sponges. 

Your basin and pitcher might sit on a sideboard or a dresser, or you might have a fancy, purpose-built washstand in the corner.  It was typically a maid who brought the pitcher of hot water up to you. The amount of water was limited by the amount you could lift and pour yourself.  That meant a maid could easily carry it. 

How clean did you get, washing this way? 

I don't see any reason to believe you couldn't keep yourself just as clean as bathing in a tub.  Even today, this is 'how it's done' for most of the world's population. 

Whether our Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century folks felt the need to wash as often as we do today or righteously refrained from washing on the grounds that it 'opened the pores' and let sickness in . . . I don't think anybody will really know.

It's not a British reference, but:

Having completed it, [my work]  I went to the stream to wash myself thoroughly, and then to the sailor's chest to change my coat, that I might make a decent appearance at breakfast, and give my sons an example of that cleanliness which their mother was at all times eager to inculcate.
                   Swiss Family Robinson 1812

And Beau Brummel advocated frequent washing. 
On the other hand, he felt he had to advocate frequent washing.

Rub a dub dub.  A couple final questions remain in my mind.

Why the devil did women sometimes wear their shifts in the bathtub?  And what is with putting a sheet along the bottom of the tub?

I have cogitated upon this from time to time when I am not concerned with other great issues of the day like, 'Why does the car always break down when I have to be somewhere in twenty minutes?' and 'Why are taxes so complicated?' and 'Why would anyone name his kid Cedric? Isn't it obvious he's going to be a supporting character and come to a sticky end in a graveyard?'

I won't call this the final word on sheets in bathtubs . . . But this is what I think:
There is cloth on the bottom of the tub because these tubs were either (a) wood and full of splinters or (b) metal and cold.

  So why are women wearing a shift in the water?

I think bathing in a tub was seen not so much as washing to get clean, as it was an enjoyable interlude. 

Think of modern habit of spending an hour reading in the bathtub.  If it took a couple man-hours to prepare and clear out that tub, it seems to me you wouldn't put your household to that much trouble and then not take full advantage of it. 

Washing with a basin and pitcher was solitary, but tub bathing, by its nature, was a group effort.  It seems to have been something of a social occasion for some folks.

Marie Antoinette wrote:  I dictate from my bath, into which I have just thrown myself, to support, at least, my physical strength. I can say nothing of the state of my mind;"

If Marat had not been of the opinion that receiving visitors in the bathtub was an unexceptional practice he might have lived a while longer.

So maybe -- a shift was worn for modesty when the bedroom was apt to be crisscrossed by servants running errands and you planned to be in the tub a while? 

washstand from the Victoria and Albert. Ewer and basin, soap ball, and the Degas statue of Woman Washing Her Leg are from the Metropolitan Museum. 

What do you think?  Were they clean and sweet in Regency times, or deplorably . . . uncleanly. 
(Not Mr. Darcy.  Say it ain't so.)

Dispossessed in the Land of Dreams

Read article : Dispossessed in the Land of Dreams

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Sometime in July 2012, Suzan Russaw and her husband, James, received a letter from their landlord asking them to vacate their $800-a-month one-bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, California. He gave them 60 days to leave. The “no-fault” eviction is a common way to clear out low-paying tenants without a legal hassle and bring in people willing to pay thousands more in rent. James was 83 at the time and suffering from the constellation of illnesses that affect the old: He had high blood pressure and was undergoing dialysis for kidney failure and experiencing the early stages of dementia.

Their rent was actually a couple of hundred dollars more than James’s monthly Social Security benefits, but he made up the rest by piecing together odd jobs. They looked for a new apartment for two months and didn’t find anything close to their price range. Their landlord gave them a six-week extension, but it yielded nothing. When mid-October came, Suzan and James had no choice but to leave. With hurried help from neighbors, they packed most of their belongings into two storage units and a ramshackle 1994 Ford Explorer which they called “the van.” They didn’t know where they were going.

A majority of the homeless population in Palo Alto—93 percent—ends up sleeping outside or in their cars. In part, that’s because Palo Alto, a technology boomtown that boasts a per capita income well over twice the average for California, has almost no shelter space: For the city’s homeless population, estimated to be at least 157, there are just 15 beds that rotate among city churches through a shelter program called Hotel de Zink; a charity organizes a loose network of 130 spare rooms, regular people motivated to offer up their homes only by neighborly goodwill. The lack of shelter space in Palo Alto—and more broadly in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, which comprise the peninsula south of San Francisco and around San Jose—is unusual for an area of its size and population. A 2013 census showed Santa Clara County having more than 7,000 homeless people, the fifth-highest homeless population per capita in the country and among the highest populations sleeping outside or in unsuitable shelters like vehicles.

San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area are gentrifying rapidly—especially with the most recent Silicon Valley surge in social media companies, though the trend stretches back decades—leading to a cascade of displacement of the region’s poor, working class, and ethnic and racial minorities. In San Francisco itself, currently the city with the most expensive housing market in the country, rents increased 13.5 percent in 2014 from the year before, leading more people to the middle-class suburbs. As real estate prices rise in places like Palo Alto, the middle class has begun to buy homes in the exurbs of the Central Valley, displacing farmworkers there.

Suzan, who is 70, is short and slight, with her bobbed hair dyed red. The first time I met her, she wore leggings, a T-shirt, a black cardigan wrapped around her shoulders, and fuzzy black boots I later learned were slippers she’d gotten from Goodwill and sewn up to look like outside shoes. (She wore basically the same outfit, with different T-shirts, nearly every time we met, and I realized she didn’t have many clothes.) Her voice is high and singsongy and she is always polite. You can tell she tries to smooth out tensions rather than confront them. She is a font of forced sunniness and likes to punctuate a sad sentence with phrases like “I’m so blessed!” or “I’m so lucky!” She wore a small necklace and said jewelry was important to her. “I feel, to dispel the image of homelessness, it’s important to have a little bling,” she said.

In the van, Suzan was in charge of taking care of everyone and everything, organizing a life that became filled with a unique brand of busy boredom. She and James spent most of their time figuring out where to go next, how to get there, and whether they could stay once they arrived. They found a short-term unit in a local family shelter in Menlo Park that lasted for five weeks. Afterward, they stayed in a few motels, but even fleabags in the area charge upwards of $100 a night. When they couldn’t afford a room they camped out in the van, reclining the backseats and making a pallet out of blankets piled on top of their clothes and other belongings. Slowly, there were fewer nights in hotels and more in the van, until the van was where they lived.

A life of homelessness is one of logistical challenges and exhaustion. Little things, like planning a wardrobe for the week, involved coordinated trips to storage units and laundromats, and could take hours. The biggest conundrum? Where to pull over and sleep. Suzan and James learned quickly not to pull over on a residential block, because the neighbors would call the police. They tried a church or two, 24-hour businesses where they thought they could hide amidst the other cars, and even an old naval field. The places with public toilets were best because, for reasons no one can quite explain, 3 a.m. is the witching hour for needing to pee. They kept their socks and shoes on, both for staying warm on chilly Bay Area nights and also for moving quickly if someone peered into their windows, or a cop flashed his light inside, ready to rouse. Wherever they were sleeping, they couldn’t sleep there. “Sometimes, I was so tired, I would be stopped at a red light and say, ‘Don’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep,’” Suzan said. “And then I would fall asleep.”

A few months in, a nice man in a 7-Eleven parking lot told them about a former high school turned community center on the eastern side of town called Cubberley. He’d walked up to their van after recognizing signs of life in the car, tired faces among the junk piling up in the back. Suzan and James were familiar with the community center because they’d taken their daughter to preschool there many years before, but they hadn’t thought about sleeping there. Cubberley had a quiet back parking lot, a flat grass amphitheater with a concrete paddock for a stage, and 24-hour public bathrooms with showers in an old gym. Rumor was that the cops wouldn’t bother anyone.

Suzan’s husband, James Russaw, pictured with two of their grandchildren.

Cubberley was a psychic relief because it solved so many basic needs: It had a place to bathe in the morning, a place to charge your phone. The parking lot had also formed its own etiquette and sense of community. People tended to park in the same places, a spot or two next to their neighbors, and they recognized one another and nodded at night. They weren’t exactly friends, but they were people who trusted each other, an impromptu neighborhood no one wanted to lose after losing so much. It was safe, a good place to spend the night. But it was next door to a segment of homeowners who were fighting hard to move the car dwellers out.

Normally, wealthy people who move into an area don’t see the results of their displacement because the people who lose their homes don’t stick around; they move to cheaper suburbs and work themselves into the fabric elsewhere. But the folks at Cubberley, 30 people on any given night, were the displacement made manifest. Most weren’t plagued with mental health or substance abuse problems; they simply could no longer afford rent and became homeless in the last place they lived. People will put up with a lot to stay in a place they know. “I’ve been analyzing why don’t I just get the heck on. Everybody says that, go to Wyoming, Montana, you can get a mansion,” Suzan said. “Move on, move on, always move on. And I say to myself, ‘Why should I have to move on?’”

It’s a new chapter in an old story. In his seminal 1893 lecture at the Chicago World’s Fair, Frederick Jackson Turner summarized the myth of the American frontier and the waves of settlers who created it as an early form of gentrification: First, farmers looking for land would find a remote spot of wilderness to tame; once they succeeded, more men and women would arrive to turn each new spot into a town; finally, outside investors would swoop in, pushing out the frontiersman and leaving him to pack up and start all over again. It has always been thus in America. Turner quoted from a guide published in 1837 for migrants headed for the Western frontiers of Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin: “Another wave rolls on. The men of capital and enterprise come. The ‘settler’ is ready to sell out and take the advantage of the rise of property, push farther into the interior, and become himself a man of capital and enterprise in turn.” This repeating cycle, Turner argued, of movement and resettlement was essential to the American character. But he foresaw a looming crisis. “The American energy will continually demand a wider field for its exercise,” he wrote. “But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves.” In other words, we would run out of places for the displaced to go.

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Suzan was born in 1945. Her father worked at what was then the Lockheed Corporation, and her mother had been raised by a wealthy family in Oak Park, Illinois. Her family called her Suzi. Though she grew up in nearby Saratoga—and spent some time in school in Switzerland—she distinctly remembers coming with her mother to visit Palo Alto, with its downtown theaters and streets named after poets. Palo Alto more than any other place formed the landscape of her childhood. “It was a little artsy-craftsy university town—you find charming towns are university towns.”

Like many women of her day, Suzan didn’t graduate from college. When she was 24, after her last stay in Switzerland, she moved to Mountain View, the town on Palo Alto’s eastern border that is now home to Google and LinkedIn. She was living off a small trust her family had set up for her when she met James at a barbecue their apartment manager threw to foster neighborliness among his tenants. James had grown up in a sharecropping family in Georgia, moved west during World War II, and was more than 17 years her senior, handsome and gentlemanly. Suzan thought: “I can learn something from him.” They were an interracial couple in the late 1960s, which was unusual, though she says her family didn’t mind. It was also an interclass marriage, and it moved Suzan down the income ladder.

For years, James and Suzan lived together, unmarried. They bought a house on University Avenue, just north of the county line and blocks from downtown Palo Alto, in 1979, and four years later had their only daughter, Nancy. It was the area’s ghetto, and the only source of affordable housing for many years. It was also the center of violence in the region, and, in 1992, was the murder capital of the country.

They never had much money. For most of their marriage, James ran a small recycling company and Suzan acted as his bookkeeper, secretary, and housewife. They refused to apply for most government assistance, even as homeless elders. “My husband and I had never been on welfare or food stamps,” she told me. “Even to this day.”

Suzan’s parents died in 2002 and 2003, and her older sister died in 2009. (“I thank God that they’re gone,” she told me. “They would die if they saw me now.”) It was a hard time for Suzan, who went to care for her dying parents and nearly left James. She felt he’d checked out of the difficulties. In retrospect, she thinks his dementia might already have been setting in; James was already in his seventies. He had taken out a second mortgage on their home, and they couldn’t pay it after he retired. They sold the house at a loss in 2005; it’s now a Century 21 office.

After they moved into the van, they settled into a routine. On the nights before James’s early-morning treatments, they slept in the dialysis center’s parking lot. Otherwise they generally stayed at Cubberley. They were still living off James’s retirement income, but most of it went to the $500 needed to rent the two storage units where their furniture remained, until they lost one for nonpayment. Finally, a few months in, Suzan was able to use a clause in a trust set up by her mother’s father to help her out in an emergency. It doubled their income—much of which was eaten up by the costs of gas, the remaining storage unit, parking tickets, and the other expenses of an unsettled life. It was a respectable income, one that technically kept them above poverty, but it still wasn’t enough for rent.

James was increasingly ill and van life was taking a toll. In addition to James’s other problems, both he and Suzan were starting to experience some of the health problems common among the homeless. The backseat of the van filled with bags of clothes, papers, fast-food detritus, pens, old parking tickets, and receipts. As the junk built up, the recline of their seats inched forever upward, until they were sitting up all the time, causing their legs to swell and nerves to become damaged, the medical consequences of not being able to raise your feet at night.

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Gentrification used to be about poor neighborhoods, usually black and brown, underdeveloped and full of decrepit and neglected housing stock, run by the occasional slumlord—often described as “blighted,” though that designation has always been problematic—and how they become converted into wealthier ones, usually through the influx of richer white people and their demand for new services and new construction. It’s a negative process for the people who have to move, but there’s occasionally an element of good, because neglected neighborhoods revive. But what’s happening now in the Bay Area is that people who’ve done nothing wrong—not paid their rent late, violated their lease, or committed any other housing sin—are being forced out to make way. Displacement is reaching into unquestionably vibrant, historic, middle- and working-class neighborhoods, like The Mission in San Francisco, a former center of Chicano power. (The Mission alone has lost 8,000 Latino residents in the past ten years, according to a report from the local Council of Community Housing Organizations and the Mission Economic Development Agency.) And it’s happening to such an extent that the social workers who used to steer people to affordable apartments as far away as Santa Rosa or Sacramento, a two-hour drive, are now telling people to look even farther out. The vehicle dwellers I spoke with said they’d heard of friends living in places like Stockton, once a modest working-class city in the middle of the state, receiving notice-to-vacate letters like the one Suzan and James received.

For the most part, the traits that draw people to Palo Alto—good schools, a charming downtown, nice neighborhoods in which to raise a family, and a short commute to tech jobs—are the very same things that made the residents of Cubberley want to stay, even if it meant living in their car. The destabilizing pressure of a real estate market is also felt by the merely rich, the upper middle class, and the middle class, because the high-end demand of the global elite sets the market prices. “My block has the original owners, a retired schoolteacher and a retired postal worker,” said Hope Nakamura, a legal aid attorney who lives in Palo Alto. “They could never afford to buy anything there now.” Most people told me if they had to sell their homes today they wouldn’t be able to buy again anywhere in the area, which means many Palo Altans have all of their wealth tied up in expensive homes that they can’t access without upending their lives. It makes everyone anxious.

The view inside a van parked outside a Palo Alto homeless organization.

The outcry from the neighbors over Cubberley was so fierce that it reshaped Palo Alto’s city government. The city council is nonpartisan, but a faction emerged that revived an old, slow-growth movement in town, known as the “residentialists.” Their concerns are varied (among them, the perennial suburban concerns of property values and traffic), but their influence has been to block any new development of affordable housing and shoo people like Suzan and James away from Palo Alto. An uproar scuttled an affordable-housing building for senior citizens near many public transit options that had been proposed by the city housing authority and unanimously approved by the city council. Opponents said they were worried about the effect the development would have on the surrounding community—they argued it wasn’t zoned for “density,” which is to say, small apartments—and that traffic congestion in the area would be made worse. Aparna Ananthasubramaniam, then a senior at Stanford, tried to start a women’s-only shelter in rotating churches, modeled after the Hotel de Zink. She said a woman came up to her after a community meeting where the same concerns had been raised by a real estate agent. “Her lips were quivering and she was physically shaking from how angry she was,” Ananthasubramaniam told me. “She was like, ‘You come back to me 20 years from now once you have sunk more than $1 million into an asset, like a house, and you tell me that you’re willing to take a risk like this.”

The trouble for Cubberley began when neighbors went to the police. There’d been at least one fight, and the neighbors complained about trash left around the center. At the time, Cubberley was home to a 64-year-old woman who’d found a $20-an-hour job after nine years of unemployment; a tall, lanky, panhandler from Louisiana who kept informal guard over her and other women at the center; a 63-year-old part-time school crossing guard who cared for his dying mother for 16 years, then lived off the proceeds from the sale of her house until the money ran out; two retired school teachers; a 23-year-old Palo Alto native who stayed with his mother in a rental car after his old car spontaneously combusted; and, for about six months, Suzan and James. “They didn’t fit this image that the powers that be are trying to create about homeless people. They did not fit that image at all,” Suzan told me. “We made sure the premises were respected, because it was an honor to be able to stay there.” She and others told me they cleaned up their areas at the center every morning.

“I said, ‘We have no place to go, and we’re staying right here.’ They were going to know about it.”

Pressured to find a way to move the residents out, the police department went to the city council claiming they needed a law banning vehicle habitation to address the neighbors’ concerns. Advocates for the homeless said that any problems could be solved if police would just enforce existing laws. Local attorneys warned the city council that such laws could soon be considered unconstitutional, because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing a challenge to a similar law in Los Angeles. Carrie LeRoy, an attorney who advocated on behalf of the unhoused, and other attorneys threatened to file a class-action lawsuit if the vehicle-habitation ban ever went into effect. The city council passed the ban anyway, in a 7-2 vote in August 2013, and the police department and other groups in the city started an outreach program to tell people about the law. “All of them had received these notices from the city,” LeRoy said, “And it was basically like, ‘Get out of our town.’”

A few weeks later, the city council also voted to close the showers at Cubberley and give it a 10:30 p.m. curfew, which made it illegal to sleep there. On their last night there, in October 2013, Suzan and James left around 8 p.m. so they wouldn’t get caught past the new curfew. They tried some old haunts and got kicked out. The stress of living in the van was hard on James. Around this time, James decided to end his dialysis. “Of course, we knew what that meant,” Suzan said.

One night, about a month after leaving Cubberley, the police pulled Suzan and James over. Their registration was expired. “This officer, he got a wild hair, and he said, ‘I’m going to impound your car,’ and called the tow truck.” Suzan told me. They got out of the car. Without pushing and demanding, she realized, she was never going to get out of the situation. She told me she said to the officer, “This is our home, and if you impound it we will not have a home.” He insisted. “I said ‘That’s fine. You do that. We will stay right here. I will put the beds out, I will put what we need here, right here on the sidewalk.” Other officers arrived and talked to them. They asked Suzan whether, surely, there was some other place they could go. “I said, ‘We have no place to go, and we’re staying right here.’ I was going to make a stink. They were going to know about it.” Suzan told me people were poking their heads out of their homes, and she realized the bigger fuss she made, the more likely officers might decide just to leave them alone.

Because James’s health had continued to worsen, he and Suzan finally qualified for motel vouchers during the cold weather. They got a room in a rundown hotel. “It had a microwave and a hot bath,” Suzan said. In his last few days, James was given a spot in a hospice in San Jose, and Suzan went with him. “It was so cut-and-dry. They said, ‘This is an end-of-life bed, period,’ ” Suzan said. “And I never said that to James.” He died on February 17, 2014, and a few weeks later a friend of theirs held a memorial service for James at her house. Suzan wore an old silk jacket of her mother’s, one that would later be ruined by moisture in the van, and a necklace Nancy had made. They ate James’s favorite foods—cornbread, shrimp, and pound cake. Suzan had a few motel vouchers left, and afterward stayed with friends and volunteers for a few weeks each, but she felt she was imposing.

That summer, she returned to her van. It was different without James; she realized she’d gotten to know him better during their van life than she ever had before. Maybe it was his dementia, but as they drove around or sat together, squished amidst their stuff, he’d started to tell her long stories, over and over, of his youth in Georgia. She’d never heard the tales before, but she’d started to be able to picture it all. On her own, without his imposing figure beside her, Suzan was scared, and more than a little lonely. Most nights, she stayed tucked away in a church parking lot, without permission from the pastor, hidden between bushes and vans. The law wasn’t being enforced, but sleeping in the lot made her a kind of a criminal. “The neighbors never gave me up,” she said.

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Suzan told me she was in a fog of denial after James’s death, but it’s probably what protected her because homelessness is exhausting. “You start to lose it after a while,” she said. “You feel disenfranchised from your own society.” The Downtown Streets Team, a local homeless organization, had been helping her look for a long-term, stable housing solution. Indeed, Suzan told me that at various times, she and James had 27 applications in for affordable housing in Palo Alto. (When he died, she had to start over, submitting new applications for herself.) Her social worker at the local senior citizens center, Emily Farber, decided to also look for a temporary situation that would get Suzan under a roof for a few months, or even a few weeks. “We were dealing with very practical limitations: having a computer, having a stable phone number,” Farber said. Craigslist was only something Suzan had heard of. She’d finally gotten a cell phone through a federal program, but hadn’t quite mastered it.

For many months, Farber struck out. She didn’t think Suzan would want to live with three 25-year-old Google employees, or that they’d want her, either. She even tried Airbnb. Because Suzan didn’t have a profile, Farber used her own, and wrote to people who had rooms listed to say her 69-year-old friend needed a place to stay in the area for a couple of weeks. “We got three rejections in a row,” she said. Finally, in November, they found a room available for rent for $1,100—about 80 percent of her income from the trust and her widow’s benefits from Social Security. Suzan would have her own bedroom and bathroom in the two-bedroom apartment of a single mother. The mother crowded into the other bedroom with her 16-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. The only downside for Suzan was that it was in Santa Clara, another charmingly bland suburban enclave in the South Bay, a half hour south of Palo Alto and a world away for Suzan. “It’s out of my comfort zone, but that’s OK!” she told me.

I met Suzan on the day she moved in, and the concept of being able to close a door was almost as unsettling to her as the concept of sleeping in the van had been. “I’m in this kind of survival mode,” she said, and had found a certain comfort in her van. “I’ve got this little cocoon I’m staying in, and everything is within arm’s reach.” She had a big blue mat in the back of the van, like a grown-up version of the kind kindergartners nap on, but soon she’d acquire a bed. She retrieved her old TV from her storage unit. She made a comfortable room, with chairs and a bed and a small table, and decided to eat her meals in there. She only signed a lease for three months, because it wasn’t really sustainable on her fixed income. She’d also applied for an affordable housing complex being built for seniors in Sunnyvale, one that would provide permanent housing for 60 senior citizens from among the 7,000 homeless people in the county at the time. She’d find out in April if she was selected in the lottery. All her hopes were pinned on it.

Mapping Suzan Russaw’s Life in Silicon Valley

In the first few weeks after her move to Santa Clara, Suzan spent a healthy portion of her limited income on gas, driving the Explorer back and forth to Palo Alto. After all, her post office box was there, and so were her social workers. Her errands demanded a lot of face time, and in some ways, she still filled her days the way she had before she got her room, moving around trying to solve her problems. Her car was still packed, too, as if she hadn’t let go of the need to drive in it, to move forward, to keep her stuff around her within arm’s reach, as if she were still without a home base.

Two afternoons a week she went to a Palo Alto food closet. She usually made it right before it closed, in the early afternoons. When her number was called, she went up to the counter to watch the volunteer sort through what was left on the shelves, finding the most recently expired items—these were older goods grocery stores couldn’t keep past their sell-by dates. Suzan’s politeness was, as always, almost formal, from an earlier era, when being ladylike was a learned skill. The volunteer would ask her if she wanted milk, or peaches, or a serving-size Baggie of cereal, and she’d say, “Yes, very much so!” These days, she got to take raw eggs instead of the boiled ones, a treat reserved for those with kitchens. Her requests were glancing rather than direct. “Have you any lettuce?” and the answer was often no. I said it seemed like an efficient operation. Suzan said, “I really know the drill!”

Suzan needed to visit her social worker, Julia Lang, at the Downtown Streets Team office to get the form that allowed her to go to an even better food bank. She asked the receptionist whether her social worker was in. She wasn’t, and Suzan explained she was looking for the food bank vouchers. Then the receptionist asked for her address. That stopped Suzan. The receptionist explained that the pantry was for Palo Alto residents, and Suzan was considering, for the first time, whether that counted her. Suzan explained that she and her husband had gone to the pantry the year before, and said they should be in the system. We waited while the receptionist looked. Suzan waved at someone she’d seen around for years, from her car-dwelling days. Suzan told the receptionist, again, that they really should be in the system. But they weren’t. Suzan said that was OK, and she would come back. The receptionist said, “Are you sure? I just need your ID and your address.” Suzan demurred. She needed to talk to her social worker. This is what it meant to have to leave her hometown. She was leaving the city where she and James had known people, the city where James had died, the city where she’d grown up and near where she’d raised her own daughter. It was the city where she knew where to go, where she’d figured out how to be homeless. It was the city where she knew the drill.

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That homelessness persists in Silicon Valley has puzzled me. It has an extremely wealthy population with liberal, altruistic values. Though it has a large homeless population relative to its size, in sheer numbers it’s not as large as New York City’s or L.A.’s. Some of the reasons could be found in the meeting on November 17, 2014, when the city finally overturned the car-camping ban. It had never been enforced because, as predicted, the Ninth Circuit had overturned L.A.’s ban. In the end, all but one person who’d voted for the ban the first time around voted to overturn it. The lone dissenter was councilman Larry Klein. “The social welfare agency in our area is the county, not the city,” he said. “To think we can solve the homeless problem just doesn’t make sense.”

This idea was repeated many times among city officials—that homelessness was too big an issue for the city to resolve. The city of Palo Alto itself has one full-time staff member devoted to homelessness, and it coordinates with county and nonprofit networks to counsel, house, and feed the homeless.

Suzan shows where she stored food in her car while homeless.

During the fight over the ban, the city tried to devise an alternative—a program that would allow car dwellers to park at churches—but then left the details up to the faith community to work out. Nick Selby, an attorney and member of the Palo Alto Friends Meeting House, said he and his fellow Quakers met with community resistance when they tried to accommodate three or four car dwellers on their tiny lot. Neighbors circulated a petition listing concerns like “the high prevalence of mental illness, drug abuse, and communicable diseases in the homeless population” and the risk of declining property values. But Selby said some of their concerns were fair. “People who objected were saying to the city, ‘What’s your program?’” Selby said. “And the city really had no answer to those questions.” Without a solid plan and logistical help from the city, other churches were reluctant to step forward. “The churches weren’t prepared to deal with this,” he said. After the church car-camping plan fell through, the city council said it had no choice but a ban.

Santa Clara County, too, struggles to address the problem. The county is participating in federal programs to build permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless population, the population of long-term homeless who typically have interacting mental health and substance abuse problems. But land is expensive here, and the area is shortchanged by the federal formula that disperses funds. California, ever in budget-crisis mode, provides limited state funds. There isn’t a dedicated funding stream from the cities, which don’t necessarily pay a tax to the county for these projects, and local affordable housing developments are often rejected by residents as Palo Alto’s was. In September, the city of San Jose and the county announced a $13 million program to buy old hotels and renovate them as shelters, which will make 585 new beds available. While advocates credit the county’s efforts with cutting the estimated homeless population by 14 percent since 2013, the number of people like Suzan, who hide in their cars, is almost certainly underestimated. But most such efforts are centered in San Jose. Chris Richardson, a director of the Bay Area’s Downtown Streets Team, said what needs to happen is not a mystery: Other cities have to fund affordable housing, they have to fund more of it, and they have to do it in their own neighborhoods, without relying on San Francisco and San Jose to absorb all of the area’s poverty and problems. “You can’t just ship them down to the big, poor city,” he said.

When Palo Alto originally passed the car-camping ban, it also devoted $250,000 to the county’s homelessness program. When they voted to rescind the ban, council members asked for an update on what happened to the money. The city staff was not prepared to report on how it had been spent at that council meeting, more than a year into the funding. Members of the council again reiterated their desire to help the homeless. “Helping the homeless” was tabled, as a general idea, for another agenda at another meeting, as it always seems to be, or passed off to the county, or to someone else—and so helping the homeless is something nobody does.

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Through the winter, Suzan remained ill; it was a bad flu season. She kept paying the rent on her room, on her storage units, on her P.O. box in Palo Alto, and she tried setting aside money she owed on parking tickets. Some months she’d run out of gas money to drive the 15 miles to Palo Alto and check her mail or visit her social workers. She was waiting to hear about the affordable apartment.

In May, she was denied. Suzan had bad credit, both because of the unpaid storage unit she and James had lost and because otherwise her credit history was so thin. Julia Lang, one of her social workers, told me she couldn’t even get a credit score for Suzan. Lang said people get denied on credit, or because they make too little for affordable housing that’s supposedly intended for extremely low-income people, all the time. “When you’re that destitute and have gone through so many complicated situations, what are the chances that your credit’s going to be good?” she said.

Suzan was livid and despondent, and she decided to appeal. “I wasn’t going to take that lying down,” Suzan told me. “I was proud of myself.” Catholic Charities helped her appeal. Suzan had to write a letter showing how she intended to repair her credit, and that she understood why it was bad in the first place. During the months of back and forth, Suzan bought a new Jeep, only one year newer than the Explorer, in case she needed to sleep in her car again. In July, she learned she’d won her appeal. She had two weeks to get her affairs in order, pay the first month’s rent and security deposit, and move in. Her social workers helped her with some of the move-in costs, and she signed a lease for a year.

I saw Suzan again in August, about three weeks after she’d moved in. Her hair was trimmed. She was wearing a brightly colored muumuu, blue and green with tropical flowers—“It’s a housedress but you can wear it out on the street!”—and a green sweater tied around her shoulders. She seemed relaxed and rested, and I told her so. Her bed was full of folded clothes, and her room was still in disarray. She was trying to cull her storage unit so that she could get a smaller one and cut down on rent. Most of the people in her complex had been in the same boat as Suzan, or had been worse off. She pays $810 a month, the amount determined to be affordable for her income. It had taken her more than three years, help from at least three social workers, and thousands of dollars, but she was finally stably housed. At least, for a year.