Huron Daily Tribune LogoHearst Newspapers Logo

Sausalito's Floating Homes: A peek inside this alluring community with Bohemian roots

By Updated
Check out the homes on the 2017 Floating Homes Tour in Sausalito.

Check out the homes on the 2017 Floating Homes Tour in Sausalito.

emilyriddell.com

The Sausalito Floating Homes Tour is on Saturday, Sept. 30. 

When the World War II shipbuilding operation Marinship closed in 1945, Sausalito's northern waterfront suddenly became available.

Artists, Beatniks and free spirits took over the docks and built ramshackle houseboats from old shipping parts. By the 1950s, Sausalito's community of floating homes and its celebrated counter-culture movement was thriving. Acid-trip parties, impromptu poetry readings and music jams were all part of the scene in this water-bound neighborhood that became known as Marinship.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Today, the community is far more eclectic with artists and writers sharing the docks with physicians, lawyers and executives. Multi-million-dollar custom dream homes rock next to former Navy ships converted into functional dwellings with loads of character.

But the Bohemian spirit and stories of the community's wild past are still alive, and you can get a taste of the culture on the annual Floating Homes Tour on Saturday, September 30 when 15 boats welcome the public onboard. (Tickets cost $50 if you buy ahead and $55 at the door.) This year's event is focusing on the community's past and highlighting its connection with Marinship (and the Sausalito area still called "the Marinship") as the shipyard celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. Visitors are encouraged to attend in 1940s attire.

You'll get to tour "The Alpha" that was originally a World War II Naval photo lab office and was later used to carry stones to build the Golden Gate Bridge before being converted into a houseboat with two studios. Tour takers can also step inside the "Fairy Tale," a 35-foot lifeboat built in 1944 — just two months before the D-Day invasion —  that was turned into a houseboat in Alameda in 1968.

The "City of Seattle" ferry boat, dating back to 1888 when it first carried passengers across Puget Sound, will also be open to visitors. During World War II, the boat worked as a yard ferry for Mare Island Shipyard, supporting the war effort by carrying as many as 900 passengers on a six minute run between Mare Island and Vallejo.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Today, the SS City of Seattle is one of the largest residences in the Sausalito floating home's community with spacious loft-like living spaces, gleaming hardwood floors and exposed beamed ceilings. 

|Updated

Amy Graff is the senior news editor for SFGATE. She was born and raised in the Bay Area and got her start in news at the Daily Californian newspaper at UC Berkeley where she majored in English literature. She has been with SFGATE for more than 10 years. You can email her at agraff@sfgate.com.

Selected stories:

How a routine open ocean swim in San Francisco ended in death

Who's behind Twitter's @KarlTheFog? An investigation

The fight over Death Valley's 134-degree temperature record heats up

San Francisco surfer, father of 2 dies after accident at Ocean Beach

The 3-minute heist wreaking havoc on the Bay Area is only getting worse