John N. Allen is a man with a consummate passion for classic mahogany boats. It’s an obsession that goes back at least 60 years to when, as a young boy, he spent summers pulling crab traps on commercial fishing boats on the Eagle River chain of lakes, near Suamico, Wisconsin. Throughout the summer he’d watch the affluent lakeside residents speed by in their classic mahogany runabouts. The seductive lines, the flashing of the brilliant chrome hardware, the deep roar of the powerful engines punctuated the Northwoods silence. He was mesmerized. He told himself that, someday, he would have one.
A lawyer who never practiced, John started his professional career in commercial real estate brokerage for Coldwell Banker Commercial in 1981. He left to develop his own portfolio and quickly realized that the real estate investment and development business can be hand-to-hand combat. Thus, on weekends and evenings, he checks out of that world and into the charmed history of his collection of classic boats. Today, he owns close to 30 of them.
By the mid-1990s, when John was in his mid-40s, his family began to summer in northern Minnesota, proximate to the lake district north of Brainerd. The first wooden runabouts that he saw, then, were part of a collection belonging to Lee Anderson at Gull Lake. By then, Anderson had already amassed a considerable wooden boat collection that caught John’s eye whenever Lee was out and about, traveling from his lakefront estate to various Gull Lake establishments. Those moments spun youthful memories. A friendship with Anderson blossomed. Allen’s quest commenced.
John found his first wooden rescue in the form of a 1928 28-foot Gar Wood Triple Cockpit Runabout. It had been located in Louisiana where the heat and humidity resulted in the need for a complete restoration. That job was completed by Mike Mahoney in Clayton, New York, and it turned out beautifully. These days, John sources his acquisitions primarily in Canada, northern Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and California, and his collection now includes many vessels known throughout the classic boating world. Among his most notable is Bolo Babe, a 1926 33-foot Baby Gar runabout. “Baby Gars” were built by Garfield A. Wood and are considered true “Holy Grail” models among vintage runabouts. Less than a dozen are still in operation today, and Bolo Babe is perhaps the most famous of them all.
While John began to amass what would become his current collection, he gave equal focus to creating a fitting enshrinement for the boats’ safekeeping. His vision resulted in what he calls “Fort Mahogany,” located on the west shore of Gull Lake, Minnesota, several hours north of Minneapolis. Construction started in 2013 and was completed in September 2015. Spread out on four acres, the Fort Mahogany boat building is 18,000 square feet; there’s also an 18,000-square-foot automotive building that holds approximately 70 classic American cars including a 1955 Chevrolet “Tri-Five” Chevy Bel Air and a Dodge Daytona Superbird. Another 6,000 square feet holds the annex and shops. The fort is “Adirondack-inspired” and it simply has no equivalent—an estate of understated grace that handsomely and abundantly compliments the stately artifacts within.
“My wife, Becky, likes to remind me that my love of classic boats, this romantic association, overshadows my good reason,” Allen says. “She is quite right. But classic boats have been woven into the fabric of our family for over 25 years.” For many families, their relationship to boating is the present moment. For the Allen family, it’s American history firing on 4, 6, 8 and 12 cylinders. Horsepower driving pleasure and memories.
“As much as I love Fort Mahogany, the deepest pleasure of collecting is the boat shows,” he continued. “When you go to a boat show, you dive into the past. Our boat shows are floating mahogany moments of sentimentality and nostalgia … of younger lives lived memorably on the lakes and rivers of America in the past summers of love, youth and family.”
John’s bias, he reminds, “is to the big and fast boats. Bunky, a 1929 33-foot Belle Isle with a WWI Liberty Aircraft engine, is named for my father; Sister Syn, a 1927 Horace Dodge Custom 35-foot race boat, powered by a WWI Curtis Conqueror engine; Teaser, a 1924 40-foot George Crouch-designed, Nevins-built Commuter Racer, powered by a V12 Wright Typhoon engine; Hornet II, a 1939 Gar Wood stepped-hull 30-foot racer, modified by Howard Hughes …with an aluminum deck and a V12 Rolls-Royce engine.”
While not open to the public, John often extends personal Fort Mahogany invitations for touring and the benefit of hospitality, education and visibility. In August of 2023, and again in 2024, John invited me for a week of photographic work to document the various vessels in his portfolio. Fort Mahogany is the kind of remarkable place that can actually make you happier, increase your level of creativity, and even improve your emotional intelligence. John shared with me stories about the individual pieces, which really brought the history of this collection into context. My eyes, and lenses, had an unobstructed window on the past and I tried to come up with my own personal interpretations, and camera techniques, to capture every moment.
Fort Mahogany also holds venerated examples from Chris-Craft, Hacker, Minet, Barnes, Purdy, Greavette, Ditchburn and more. Each boat has a pedigree. Stunning. Striking. Salient. To quote the late, great nautical historian, Harold Shield, “Although over [80] years have passed since the last Ditchburn boat left the Gravenhurst [Ontario] factory, their products continue to be visible and set the standard for the glory years of wooden pleasure-craft construction of the Muskoka area. Survivors [of every brand] are treasured reminders of a time when craftsmen built boats by hand, using the finest materials, creating a custom product uniquely suited to its purpose and its owner.”
For Allen, owning vintage wooden boats has become not only a source of pleasure, but now also a responsibility. “Quality restorations are the key to enjoying the boats. When you have a true artisan do a highly professional restoration, and you then properly store and care for your boat, you will have many years of pleasurable use.”
“So out of all these classics, what’s your favorite boat?” I asked him. His response was immediate: “My favorite boat is the last one I just paid the restoration bill on!”
This article originally appeared in the June/July 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
