My boat is a '72 also; you will find that, if you dig out the foam between the stringers on the stbd side, that there is enough room for a large battery box and Group 27 battery between the stringers. I'm also able to stow 100' of anchor line between the batteries and a 9# Danforth stern anchor and about 8' of chain on top of the battery box. Attached picture shows my battery setup - at the time I was using an Optima Red Top battery in the stock location out at the chine, and you're right, there isn't enough room there for a battery box. I used the Optima because it's sealed and only weighed about 37 lbs. A big group 27 battery in that spot made the boat heal to stbd, and that was a problem with my roller trailer because the roller system has so many degrees of freedom that the if the boat was healed to one side in the water, it tended to come on the trailer the same way! That problem went away after I installed the Galley Seat and a 6 gal water jug on port side. The Optima battery eventually died after 7 years, so I replaced it with Group 34 wet cell battery that's about the same weight because I concluded that it wasn't a good idea to mix AGM and wet cell batteries in the same system, as they like to be charged at different rates and voltages. I often use the live well under port seat for bait so didn't want to to put a battery there, and I also have a port-a-pottie, so that location is also not an option.
Putting a house battery up front is a good compromise, and would probably not require heavy cables if you don't ever plan to use it for a starting battery, although I would want to keep that option. I probably should consider doing that, as my boat is quite stern heavy with the bracket + 427 lb motor, but with the combination of a 4B prop and AV plate fin, it has acceptable (~12 mph) low speed planing performance, and I also use that space under the bunks for storage on long trips, so I will probably stick with the current configuration. If you stick with a sub-400 lb motor and use an AV plate fin and 4B prop, I think you will find that the forward battery location isn't really necessary. However if you go with a 500 lb 4-stroke motor you may want to consider it.
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