You looking for like hand written website or more of a template kinda thing? Because most the free forum stuff is shit, and integrating users into a hand written website is kinda eh. I have made a couple websites in the past, but most using a template and then monkeying with the code to get what i want from it.
At one point i was running a website where we ported games from windows to mac using wineskin wrappers and then allowed people to download the games from us. That was back in like 2010 though when all that internet piracy shit was going down and I got scared there would be legal repercussions. Anyway we hit about 1000 users in the first 2 months and grew fast from there.
What exactly are you looking for because i may be able to suggest something or help you get going.