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All the United States California Sausalito Gates Co-op Houseboat Community
Gates Co-op Houseboat Community is permanently closed.

This entry remains in the Atlas as a record of its history, but it is no longer accessible to visitors.

AO Edited

Gates Co-op Houseboat Community

A living time capsule of the 1960s Richardson Bay water-front.

Sausalito, California

Added By
Tre
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CAPTION
The very flirtatious dock cat named Shasta. Make sure to give her a pet.  
Leaning house with Alice in Wonderland mural  
Metal sun-shape sculpture.  
The co-op office. The sign on the door says “be kind.”  
This house is reminiscent of a De Chirico painting… with its unusual colors, its columns and strange statues. Surreal.  
Los Muertos!  
Sculpture garden  
The parking lot totem pole  
Private Property: Enter At Your Own Risk  
Walkway and power lines  
Pirate Starship!  
A paddle wheel and smokestack from the ferry boat, Charles Van Damme (all that is left of her today.)  
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About

Surrounded by million dollar "floating homes" on beautiful docks behind locked gates, the low hanging-bundled wires and a "Private Property Enter at Your Own Risk" sign constitutes the entrance to the rickety Gates Co-op dock in Richardson Bay, Sausalito. This cluster of eccentric houseboats - a pirate ship, a floating traitor, homes built on the remnants of WWII shipbuilding tugs and homes atop concrete barges - are the last vestige of what the old-timers call "The Last Free Ride".

Richardson Bay has been home to houseboats for over a hundred years, but the end of Sausalito's WWII warship building days coupled with the 1950's bohemian movement and the 1960's hippie migration west brought a booming community to the shallow tidal waters. The harbor, then owned by Don Arques, became home to a variety of cobbled together, and sometimes barely floating, houseboats and a community of "free-thinking" bohemians and hippies.

"It was the wild west back then. I guess it still is." Jack who has lived in the Gates for 35 years remembers the early years: "New people arrived, we'd help them tow a sunken boat out of the mud, then build a boat and they lived free." Notorious all-night, and even all-week parties, were held in the old paddle boat ferry, and for a short time Bill Kreutzman, the drummer for The Grateful Dead, lived on a boat and played all the parties.

In the late 1960's tensions between the waterfront community and the local authorities reached a breaking point and the legal battles moved from the court house to the water. In a series of police raids Co-op members call the "water wars", house boats where cut free of their moors by local police and the coast guard. Facing mounting health and building code violation charges Don Arques sold Waldo Point and the 1970's became a time of drastic change as permanent docks where built and houseboat-specific building codes where put in place and enforced. The resulting construction left 38 boats without slips in the new docks.

Today, these 38 forgotten boats give a fleeting glimpse into the history of the Sausalito waterfront. Many of the original bohemian artists and hippies still live in these boats and their children have bought the boats of those who have moved on or passed away. Some of the children have never lived on land while others leave for a period and come back. The visuals have changed slowly; a rusty smoke stack and paddle wheel is all that's left of the old ferry boat, metal WWII boats are slowly being taken apart piece by piece and replaced with wood, and the dock has become more and more "respectable." But the bohemian and hippie roots of the Co-op are still visible for the time being.

This community, in it's current incarnation, is fleeting. New contruction and development will relocate and dispierce the boats over the next 5 years.

Related Tags

Water Eccentric Homes Homes

Know Before You Go

From Hwy 101 take Marin City/Saualito exit. Turn on to Gate 6 Rd and immediately turn right into the gravel parking lot. Park there and walk through the garden to the doc. The dock is much like a private road, you are allowed to pass but you do so at your own risk. Be respectful of the residents, watch for low-hanging wires, and keep steady footing on the shifting. docks.

Community Contributors

Added By

Tre

Edited By

HB Scone

  • HB Scone

Published

August 31, 2009

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Sources
  • Interviews with Co-op members
  • Waldo Point Harbor Website
  • http://waldopointharbor.net/
  • News Letter from the Floating Homes Association
  • www.floatinghomes.org/dnload/FT200302.pdf
  • A Brief History of the Sausalito Water-front
  • http://www.boatingsf.com/region_topic.php?topic=history&region=sausalito
  • "The Last Free Ride" - Movie produced and directed by Roy Nolan and Associate Producer Saul Rouda
Gates Co-op Houseboat Community
Gate 6
Sausalito, California, 94965
United States
37.872956, -122.50361
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