Island living
Sipping on a beer on a yellow-sand beach with a grove of grand, old-growth trees at his back, Floyd Miller gazes out at the rippling water.
"When the wind blows right, you can hear the elephants," he says.
Despite the seemingly exotic location, Miller is only 20 minutes from his Pittsburgh home, relaxing on Six Mile Island between Sharpsburg and Highland Park in the Allegheny River. The trumpeting elephants are across the way at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium.
Miller is a member of the Lazy Day Islanders, a group 30 families that leases the six-acre island, accessible only by boat, from O'Hara.
Six miles upstream, people crossing the Hulton Bridge can look down and glimpse another such place: 12 Mile Island -- part of Harmar.
Part-time residents of the islands who want to leave city life behind are never more than a short boat ride away from their own private island paradise.
"There's more and more housing plans going up. I can't even sit in my backyard without looking out and seeing them," said Lazy Day Islander Vickie Froelich, 44, of North Fayette. "Then you come down here, and it just takes you back to what used to be. It's all nature and nothing pretentious, nothing built-up. It's not that I don't like people, I just don't like a lot of concrete."
It's not for everyone
Several islands, accessible only by boat, dot the Allegheny River. Some, like Sycamore Island off of Blawnox, are uninhabited, and 14 Mile Island upstream is a state park. Six and 12 Mile Islands -- named for their distance from the Point -- are the only two in the Pittsburgh area that have part-time residents, although Indian arrow heads that turn up on islands indicate American Indians once frequented the same shores.
Lazy Day members must be married, own a boat and pay $130 a year for a 20-foot-wide beach-front plot. Although the island once was home to cottages, flooding has gradually washed them away and islanders now set up canopies and tents. Islanders must help maintain the four outhouses and work with their next-door neighbors to maintain a shared boat dock.
O'Hara Manager Doug Arndt says the relationship works well for the township. The islanders keep it clean, help maintain the natural environment, plant trees to prevent erosion and act as a deterrent to passing boaters who might otherwise party on the island and leave garbage behind. The islanders also maintain a $1 million liability insurance policy.
The Lazy Day Islanders have leased Six Mile Island since the early 1970s, originally from owner Ephriam Werner, who donated it to O'Hara in 1980. The Island, sometimes also called Guyasuta Island, also is known as Nancy Werner Park, named for Ephriam's wife.
Shore thing
The Lazy Day Islanders are hardly the first to take advantage of the island.
Legend has it the island hosted an illegal drinking establishment during Prohibition, and member Lynette Bates, 37, of Sharpsburg, said her grandparents belonged to a previous club that erected a large tent and ran electricity from Sharpsburg to use the island as a gambling spot.
A few old, rusty cars that are scattered on the island likely arrived over the ice in winter, driven and abandoned by car thieves on a joy ride.
On the upstream tip of the island, ruins remain from a partially built hotel that Hurricane Agnes tore through in 1972.
Floods remain a concern for the islanders. The remnants of hurricanes Frances and Ivan hit with a one-two punch last year, tearing out docks and littering the island with debris. The waterline from the Ivan flood is visible 10 feet up a tree.
"It goes underwater normally every winter and then every six or seven years in a big flood," said Dave Bleil, 47, of Shaler who serves as president of the Lazy Day Islanders. "It's a constant work in progress."
Upriver at 12 Mile Island in Harmar, where people still occupy sturdy cottages, islanders were hit harder by the recent floods.
Harmar officials said land on that island is privately owned and flood damage was intense.
But it is difficult to gauge the situation at 12 Mile Island. Harmar officials offered little information, and a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter who visited there recently was quickly asked to leave by "Island Officer" Gary. He declined to answer any questions about the island, saying they did not want any publicity.
Miller said he and others who frequent the rivers have had similar experiences on 12 Mile Island.
"I stopped there a few times, and they don't want to talk to anybody," he said.
Bleil said the reticence of the 12 Mile Islanders is not surprising. With permanent structures on the island, they have more to fear from vandals, like those who struck Six Mile Island this spring and used boat docks to make a bonfire.
Communal living
On a recent Sunday afternoon, Six Mile Island children splashed in the river or swung on a rope swing while teenagers tossed horseshoes. Miller, the expert angler of the island, teaches kids how to fish and the older kids keep an eye on the little ones.
Communal feasts are common, and meals are always casual.
"The kids don't know where they're eating at. They just walk up and down and see who's eating what they want," said Laurann Bleil, wife of Dave Bleil.
"All the older kids end up being baby-sitters for the younger kids," she said. "Most of them call everybody aunt or uncle, whether they're related or not."
Many islanders are related, and some that aren't soon will be: Cassandra Bleil, Dave and Laurann's daughter, met Timothy Carricato on the island when they were children. Now 21, she's engaged to him.
"We baby-sat for all the little kids together when were growing up," she said.
Lynette Bates brought both her daughters to the island within a week of their births. "We're like one big family," she said. "The ones that aren't related end up becoming like family."
"We all get along, all have fun," said Dave Flynn, 19. "I like it because it's not like the city. It's like camping, but close."
Dave Bleil said even teenagers seem to enjoy spending time with their family on the island.
"You come out here for the weekend and your kids are with you," he said, "not out on the street."
