A mansion on the lake

A multimillion-dollar masterpiece will hit Lake Coeur d’Alene on Sunday.

Boat builder Fred Finney spent nearly two years building La Dame du Lac, or The Lady of the Lake, a 100-foot long, 28-foot-wide luxury craft equipped with a home theater, climate-controlled wine cellar, helicopter landing pad and other lavish amenities.

“I just decided I wanted to build a nice boat for my family,” Finney said.

The 6,200-square-foot craft, with 2,610 square feet of interior space, will make its debut Sunday at a private launch from the Finneys’ Spokane River home.

The boat ties with the Mish-an-Nock of Coeur d’Alene Lake Cruises, which Finney manages, as the largest boat on the lake. The Coeur d’Alene cruise boat, built by Finney in 1979, comes in next.

Finney declined to say how much he spent on his dream. But to build a boat of equal quality, he said, he’d charge about $3 million. And that excludes the customized interior, which boasts American cherry cabinets, Brazilian cherry floors and “$20,000 worth of acoustic tiles in the ceiling,” Finney said.

“There’s literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of woodwork in here,” he said.

The 51-year-old designed every inch of the two-deck boat. He incorporated ideas from friends and installed amenities he’d heard of from others, including a retractable plasma television in the ceiling of the bar and living room area. At the touch of a button, a wooden ceiling panel gives way, bringing down the television.

“That is about a $15,000 TV right there,” Finney said. “The bracket to raise and lower the TV was $7,000 alone.”

Douglas Lee, of Spokane’s Audio Video Design Associates, wired the floating house. The company handles wiring for high-end homes, but Finney’s boat is unlike any project Lee has seen. “Even most of the homes I do don’t have this much integration,” he said.

Electronically controlled shades hang in the windows. Closets have motion-detector lights. Five sources of music can flow to different areas of the vessel. The lighting system allows for 72 programmed modes. A security system surveys outside the boat and can send images to any of 11 TV sets inside, including in the master cabin.

“You can see what the weather’s like before you get out of your bedroom,” Finney said.

A home theater sits off the living area. Six leather seats bump and vibrate with the stereo sound, which flows from speakers and subwoofers in the walls.

“You might want to just put your pen down and enjoy it for a while, because it’s really nice,” Finney told a reporter before turning on the large plasma TV. “I would venture to say that this is the finest (floating) home theater in the country.”

The boat’s size allows for full-scale rooms, including a kitchen comparable to what one would find in a new house.

Finney began building boats as a boy, carrying on a family tradition that began when his uncle John started a pleasure boat excursion business on Lake Coeur d’Alene in the 1920s. He purchased the company, Coeur d’Alene Lake Cruises, then sold it to Hagadone Hospitality in the 1980s. He has managed the business for Hagadone since, along with owning a custom boat shop, Finney Boat Works.

Finney plans to enjoy La Dame du Lac with his wife, Diane, and their children, Katelyn, 14, Matthew, 13, and Jakob, 10. But eventually he’ll sell it and move on to a bigger project, he said. “I’m a dreamer,” Finney said. “I like to create things.”

He often talks with friends and workers who helped build the boat, asking what more he could do. “I like to keep an open mind,” Finney said. “People who are successful and have nice things are the people that listen to other people.”

The “floating mansion,” as Finney’s friend David Kilmer calls it, isn’t quite complete. Along with interior decorations, a hot tub and outdoor kitchen still need to be installed on deck. And the Finneys are considering buying a helicopter to land atop the boat.

Finney called the yacht “the most structurally sound boat on the lake – by far.”

Its grandiose style makes good business sense, he explained. “When you own your own business, you want to show people what you have the capability of doing,” he said. “Then they’ll say, ‘If I want a boat built, hey, I’ll go to Finney, because obviously he knows what he’s doing.’ “