Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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4 4 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 5.14 Still Wet Behind the Ears Before Norma Martin-Voyles moved into her lighthouse-inspired home on the shore of the Ohio River, she lived on the river. For 10 years she called a 1937-built steam-powered sternwheeler named the Winnie Mae home. Martin-Voyles, 76, and her then-husband, who works on the Belle of Louisville, bought the Winnie Mae basically as a shell and had it completely restored. "She had caught fre going upriver from Louisville after Derby Weekend 1991," Martin-Voyles says. Water has always fascinated her. Her grandfather built wooden fshing boats as a hobby. As a youngster in New Albany, Ind., she went with her grandpa to watch steamboats paddling up the river whenever they heard the calliope music coming from the boat whistles. She went to school for interior-design training so she could make a career out of decorating boats. When her son and daughter were growing up, vacations always involved water activities — boating, water skiing, swimming. Martin-Voyles says living aboard the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath Winnie Mae was a lot like living in a regular house. "When you are a 'live-aboard,' you still have the same obligations — a job, household chores — but just being able to look out your window and have water all around you makes a diference. Almost like being on vacation," she says. Several years ago, she decided to move onto land to follow another interest — lighthouses. "Anywhere I've travelled from the time I was very young, I explored every lighthouse I could get into," she says. After spending a weekend in a bed-and-breakfast that was a replica of the Tomas Point Shoal Lighthouse in the Chesapeake Bay, she fell in love with the idea of living in one. She sold the Winnie Mae to a buyer up- river in Pittsburgh and commissioned local architect Anne Del Prince to build a replica of the Tomas Point Shoal Lighthouse of River Road not far from Captain's Quarters. Martin-Voyles moved in in 2007 and did the contemporary decor herself. Te design is clean and simple, with just a few nauti- cal touches such as a table in the entryway whose top is shaped like a ship's wheel and a side table made from the Winnie Mae's old whistle. Te entire house sits on a 35-foot raised foundation, so it will never food. Te nine-foot windows in the living and dining rooms look out on the river. Te bedrooms and baths are in a loft, accessed from a custom-built spiral staircase. An elevator runs from the entrance at ground level to the loft at the top. Te septuagenarian, who recently put the house up for sale, keeps binoculars handy to get a closer look at the river trafc. She especially likes to watch sailboat races on Wednesday nights in the summer. For her, living beside the water has been a close second to living on the water. "It's almost as cozy and peaceful," she says, "only you have a much wider view of the river, the horizon and the sunsets. It's as close as you can get to that gentle rock and splash of the river that I will always remember." 38-49 Real Estate.indd 44 4/17/14 2:53 PM