By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
Back in 2012 we wrote about the 1873 move of the San Francisco Yacht Club from its small clubhouse across the Bay to a new home on the Sausalito waterfront. At the time It was the second yacht club in the U.S., according to historian Jack Tracy, and the first on the West Coast.
That original Sausalito clubhouse was destroyed by fire in March 1897 but was rebuilt and reopened with a gala dance 13 months later. In his book Moments in Time, Tracy writes, “The new clubhouse became a Sausalito landmark for the yachting fraternity on San Francisco Bay, and the setting for countless memorable parties and celebrations over the next twenty-five years.”
Part of the club’s growing popularity was due to a decision to accept female members, as reported in the Sausalito News of December 1899:
Some months ago the yachting fraternity was greatly surprised over an innovation of the San Francisco Yacht Club. At one of the monthly meeting! the board of directors elected to membership Mrs. E. A. Sparry. This action caused considerable comment for some time. A visit to this clubhouse at the present time shows how successful the action of the board of directors has been. What have been heretofore blank and dreary rooms have been embellished by woman's touch until everything about the club shows a finish and a refinement that can be the work only of the fair sex. Since the election of Mrs. Sparry the club has taken into active membership Miss L.C. Campbell, Miss Grace Martin, Mrs. A. L. Black, Mrs. E. Shoobert, Miss E.L. Wilson, and Mrs. Geo. Story. Mrs. Sperry and Miss Martin at once started in to make the clubrooms inviting, and it was but a short time before the hill residents of Sausalito were spending their leisure moments at the club headquarters.
The ladies society named Las Amigas has taken the upper rooms of the club house. The dance room has been arranged for the game of basket-ball, and the reading room provided with periodicals and decorated with rugs and flowers. Meetings are held every week and the club is supporting a social meeting place, of which Sausalito has long been much in need.
Ironically, it was a 20th-century innovation that forced the club out of Sausalito. Tracy notes: “Finally, it was the automobile, more than anything else, that precipitated the decision to move the San Francisco Yacht Club from Sausalito. By the early 1920s, the limited space around the clubhouse had become inadequate for parking the automobiles of members and guests. In addition, Water Street [now Bridgeway] was becoming more noisy and dusty from the increasing traffic, though this was a nuisance the yachtsmen could endure. But in 1922 the demon automobile struck a blow that could not be tolerated. A new ferry landing was built just north of the clubhouse by the Golden Gate Ferry Company.
“The wake of the large auto ferries passing close to the yacht club anchorage played havoc with mooring lines and boats as well, popping hatches and cabinet doors and all but swamping the smaller boats.” By 1926 decided to relocate.
That decision led to a schism described on the Club’s website: “One group, headed by Commodore Clifford Smith, felt that Belvedere Cove would be an ideal location. Another group felt that the Club should move back to San Francisco and lease land from the city on the Marina. After considerable discussion, the Belvedere site was finally selected. Those who opposed the move resigned and formed the St. Francis Yacht Club.”
PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SFYC Yacht club skinny dips, as shown here in the 1880s, presumably ended by 1899