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New York real estate has always been a little unhinged—shoebox apartments that cost more than castles, brownstones priced like entire islands. But here’s a listing that really floats above the rest: the Yankee Ferry, Ellis Island’s last surviving passenger boat, is officially on the market for $1.25 million.
The 118-year-old vessel has lived many lives. Built in 1907, she ferried immigrants to Ellis Island, served in both world wars, toured Lady Liberty, shuttled passengers to Block Island and Casco Bay and even spent time as scrap. Since 2003, though, she’s been a floating fantasia—home and studio to artists Richard and Victoria MacKenzie-Childs, who transformed the 150-foot-long, 10,000-square-foot ship into something between a maximalist wonderland and a living history museum.
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Think bright painted walls, lace and patterned wallpaper, swinging rope chairs, trunks straight out of steampunk dreams and beds tucked everywhere from the wheelhouse to the engine room. There’s even a piano on board. Original ship details still peek through, layered with the couple’s signature eccentric aesthetic. The result is part antique, part fever dream and entirely unique.
Of course, life on a historic iron-hulled steamship isn’t all sunsets and swans gliding past your porthole. Dockage fees have skyrocketed over the years, and the MacKenzie-Childs duo—now in their 70s—says it’s time to pass the baton. The Yankee has been shuffled around New York and New Jersey since their ownership, with stints in Tribeca, Hoboken and Brooklyn’s Gowanus Bay Terminal before finally landing at a Staten Island shipyard.
Before she sails off to her next chapter, though, New Yorkers have a rare chance to peek inside. As part of Open House New York’s festival weekend (October 17–19), the Yankee will open her doors for timed tours. “This is a truly unique houseboat and we’re so excited to get to share how some New Yorkers live this way,” Elis Shin, the festival’s deputy director, told Gothamist. Tickets cost $7 and will almost certainly vanish faster than a Midtown parking spot.
If you’ve got a cool million (and a quarter) plus somewhere to dock her, the Yankee Ferry could be your next home. After all, as Victoria MacKenzie-Childs put it, “She’s the most important vessel on the sea as far as her accomplishments. I mean, she changed the world, really, when you think of it.”