Visiting the Sausalito Floating Homes
You'll find the Sausalito floating home community on the north side of town, near where Bridgeway Blvd. merges into US Hwy 101 North. You can see a few floating homes from US Hwy 101 just north of there, but it gives little idea of the extensive, elaborate and beautiful places people live in.The private docks aren't accessible to the public and parking around them is reserved for residents, but if you can find a parking spot Gate 5 Road at Bridgeway Blvd., you can walk along the water's edge and see a few of them. If you can't park, a quick drive through the parking lots offers a glimpse.
To see more, take a guided walking tour of the floating home area - or even better, put the annual Floating Homes Tour on your calendar. Held in late September, it's a rare chance to get onto the docks and inside some of these unique abodes.
Singer Otis Redding made the Issaquah Dock the floating homes' most famous spot when he wrote the first verse of "Dock of the Bay" while staying there in 1967, but perhaps the most over-the-top home is called Taj Mahal - and yes it does look like its namesake. It's moored at the end of Johnson St., just a few blocks north of downtown Sausalito. Insider's Guide to Sausalito tells how to get there.
One floating home is accessible any time, but it's an escapee, now docked near Pier 39 in San Francisco and called Forbes Island. Designed by Forbes Kiddoo as a millionaire's Sausalito home, it was featured on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" after it opened in 1980. It originally had 3 staterooms, 56 portholes and a waterfall cascading into a hot tub. Today, it's a restaurant with its own private lighthouse.
