Find a lake, float out to the center, build a house

[Image: Fishermen on Lake Tanganyika, via Wikipedia].

"The matted growths of aquatic plants fringing its shores are cut off in sections, and towed to the centre of the lake. Logs, brushwood, and earth are laid on the floating platform, until it acquires a consistency capable of supporting a native hut and a plot of bananas and other fruit trees, with a small flock of goats and poultry. The island is anchored by a stake driven into the bed of the lake; and if the fishing become scarce, or should other occasion occur for shifting his domicile, the proprietor simply draws the peg, and shifts his floating little mansion, farm, and stock, whither he chooses."

—John Geddie, The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Record of Modern Discovery (Edinburgh, 1883), as quoted by Giles Foden in Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika
(Thanks, Valerie!)