By: Skyler Johnson
When looking at the house on 400 Alton Road in South Beach, Miami, you might not see anything too spectacular given the surrounding area. Sure, it doesn’t fit perfectly into the surrounding architectural styles but it’s still a nice postmodern villa on the water. What makes this house different is that it doesn’t just stay docked at 400 Alton Road but instead is able to move around the water. Yes, this house is not only a house but also a boat, known colloquially as a “floating villa.”
The Arkup has 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths, with plenty of space for everything from crew quarters to an outdoor shower. The ship even contains room to dock another boat. Because of Miami’s infamous hurricanes, the boats come with the ability to be raised 18 feet above the water.
The biggest draw is that it’s fully self-sustainable, and has 36 kW of solar capacity and 182 kW in the battery, with the average home only needing 14-20 kW. This is definitely the house of the future, especially when you consider rising sea levels.
The house, while being unique, is also beautiful, and comes fully furnished with luxurious postmodern stylings and contains a seamless interior/exterior design with plenty of window space to allow for natural lighting, all powered by the solar panels and the ship’s battery.
They’re also developing more houses that are just like The Arkup, which are some of the few where you can decide where you want your ship to go, so long as it’s an accessible port. Of course, these houses don’t come cheap. They cost 5.5 million dollars as of now, but the company does intend on building more affordable ships as time continues. So if you don’t happen to have the 5.5 million dollars necessary to buy an Arkup right now, you may soon be able to.
