53352 Peterson Bay Rem SW

A 1971 cabin on a bluff above Peterson Bay, on the south shore of Kachemak Bay across the water from Homer, 842 square feet with two bedrooms and a three quarter bath on 1.3 acres, listed at $329,000 after a cut from $365,000. The listing calls it a waterfront cabin with a private deck over the bay and close proximity to the Homer harbor. What it does not say, in a single field, is how you get there. There is no road on this shore. The photos show a boardwalk staircase down the bluff to a wooden ladder on a piling at the beach, and a boat moored in the bay. Sewer is listed as none. Water is a spring and a holding tank. The address is a borough grid number on a survey label, not a street. This is the first Alaska property we have written up.

What the address is

The listing’s street is Peterson Bay Rem SW. That is not a road. Rem is remainder, the borough’s word for the part of a subdivided tract left over after the numbered lots were cut, and SW is the southwest of it. The Kenai Peninsula Borough gives every parcel a five-digit grid number for emergency response whether or not a road reaches it, and 53352 is this one’s. Redfin has carried the number 53352 under three labels over the years, Peterson Bay Rem SW, Peterson Bay/Halibut Cove Area, and plain Peterson Bay in Halibut Cove, and only the current listing attaches a parcel number, 19332017, to it. There is no mail delivery to a survey remainder and nothing to type into a car.

How you get there

The listing’s parking fields say no garage and no carport, and no field mentions a road, a driveway, a dock, a mooring or an airstrip. Peterson Bay is on the roadless south side of Kachemak Bay, which the Sterling Highway does not cross. Everything on that shore arrives by water or by air. In practice that means a water taxi or your own boat from the Homer harbor, a few miles across open bay, or a float plane. The photos show the landing: a boardwalk and stairs down the bluff through the spruce to a wooden ladder bolted to a piling at the beach, and a boat swinging on a mooring in the bay in one aerial. No dock appears. Kachemak Bay has some of the largest tidal ranges in the country, and a ladder on a piling is a landing that works at some tides and not at others.

The listing gives 1.3 acres, one parcel, 19332017, zoned not zoned, with a bluff, hilly and sloping topography and views of the bay, the mountains and the ocean. The Kenai Peninsula Borough holds no lot size, building record or assessment history on the parcel at either listing site, only the number. Kachemak Bay State Park covers most of this shore, and private parcels here sit inside or against it. Whether this one borders the park is not listed.

The cabin

Built in 1971, one story, frame with wood siding on sono tubes and treated posts, under a metal roof, cabin style. Two bedrooms, one three quarter bath, 842 square feet, no basement, no garage. The listing lists sheds as additional structures. Heating is electric baseboard and a wood stove, and the photos show both plus a plug-in radiator in a bedroom. Utilities read electric. A meter box shows on the cabin wall and an electrical panel in the kitchen.

Inside is one main room with a wood stove on a stone pad, a table and chairs, a recliner, three windows on the bay, and a kitchen with oak cabinets, an electric range and a refrigerator. The remarks name solid surface counters and composite decking. Two bedrooms, one with a door to the deck, a bath with a vanity and toilet, a laundry with a washer and dryer, and a small room finished in bare plywood. The deck wraps the bay side with stairs down the bluff.

Water is listed as hold tank, private, spring, and one photo shows a spring box in the brush with a bucket beside it. A rain barrel stands at the back steps. Sewer is listed as none. The listing does not say what the toilet in the photos drains to.

The facts

What to know before you call

There is no road, and the listing never says so. Peterson Bay is across Kachemak Bay from Homer on a shore the highway does not reach. The listing gives no access field at all. You get there by water taxi or your own boat from the Homer harbor, or by float plane, and you get back the same way when the weather lets you. The photos show what the landing is: a boardwalk staircase down the bluff and a ladder on a piling at the beach, no dock. Ask how the sellers get there, whether there is a mooring and who owns it, what the water taxi costs each way, how many trips a year the weather cancels, and what a winter month looks like when the bay is rough and the daylight is short. Ask how a refrigerator, a load of lumber or a propane tank reaches the cabin, because everything that is there came up that stair.

Most lenders will not touch it. A house with no road access, no sewer, spring water and a bluff-top pier foundation is outside what a conventional or government-backed lender writes. The listing lists no financing terms. Assume cash, or a local portfolio lender who knows the south shore, and ask the agents which lenders have closed on this bay before.

Sewer reads none. The cabin has a flush toilet, a bath with a vanity and a washer in the photos, and the sewer field says none. Ask what the toilet drains to and where the gray water goes. A holding tank has to be pumped, and there is no pump truck on this shore. An outhouse is not in the photos.

Spring water and a holding tank. Water reads hold tank, private and spring. One photo shows a spring box in the brush. Ask where the spring is, whether it is on the parcel, whether it runs in winter, what feeds the tank when it does not, and what the water tests. The rain barrel at the back steps may be a supplement or the answer to the winter question.

Electric, from where. The listing says electric. A meter box and a panel show in the photos. Homer Electric serves parts of the south shore, and other parcels run on generators and batteries. Ask which this is, and if it is grid power, what the line crosses to get here.

Tidelands. Alaska holds the land below mean high water in trust for the public. The listing calls the property ocean front with bay access, and the piling and ladder stand on the beach. Anything below the mean high water line, a piling, a mooring, a dock you might build, sits on state tidelands and needs a state lease or permit. Ask where the mean high water line falls on this parcel, whether the piling is permitted, and whether any tideland lease exists or conveys.

The park. Kachemak Bay State Park covers most of the south shore, and the private parcels at Peterson Bay sit inside or against it. Whether this parcel borders the park, whether any trail crosses it, and what the park’s neighbors can and cannot do with their land are not in the listing. Ask for the plat and a map with the park boundary drawn.

The price against the history. It listed at $405,000 in 2021, sold in July 2022 after listing at $375,000, at a price Alaska does not disclose, and is asking $329,000 now after starting at $365,000. In 2013 it listed at $142,000. The remarks name new counters and decking and nothing else. Ask what has been done since 2022 and what the seller paid.

Borough assessment. The Kenai Peninsula Borough assesses every year at full and true value, and this parcel’s assessment has risen from $112,400 to $160,800 since 2022 with the bill moving from $758 to $854. The borough’s rolls at the two listing sites hold no lot size or building data for the parcel, so there is nothing to check the 1.3 acres or the 842 square feet against. Ask the borough assessor for the record card. Alaska does not reassess on sale, but a $329,000 sale on a $160,800 assessment will be noticed at the next annual pass.

What conveys. Furnished throughout in the photos. The listing lists hookups and nothing else as included. Ask about the appliances, the furniture, the wood stove, the boat and the mooring.

A plywood room, and sheds that do not appear. One photo shows a small room finished in bare plywood with a light and no fixtures. The listing lists sheds and none appears in the photos. Ask what the room is and where the sheds are.

Thirty-five photos. The whole gallery. Not shown: a dock, a road, an outhouse, the sheds, the spring at its source, the underside of the cabin on its posts, and the cabin in winter.

You can see everything else we have listed on the properties page. For other places the road does not reach we have a cabin on one acre at 8,500 feet in the Nez Perce National Forest in Elk City, Idaho and a 1953 log cabin with its own lake inside the Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan.

To ask about this one, contact Bay Realty in Homer and ask for Claire Kiesel or Debra K Leisek, and reference MLS 26-7506. The listing prints no phone number for the agents or the brokerage. Tell them where you saw it.