By Devin Holt
One of the oldest continually-operating saloons in California is up for grabs. Smiley’s Schooner Saloon in the nearby surf town of Bolinas recently hit the market with an asking price of $1,499,999. That’s enough for a two bedroom condo in San Francisco’s more desirable neighborhoods, or “one dollar under 1.5 million,” as the realtor describes it. The bar, hotel, and music venue is known among musicians for gigs that come with a free room and rowdy crowd, and to music fans as a place where you could catch artists like Devendra Banhart, Michael Hurley, or Sparrows Gate. Smiley’s is one of several points of local pride in Bolinas. It opened in 1851, which, as their website points out, is before Abraham Lincoln was president, or “Jingle Bells” was a song.
But there would be a catch to owning this piece of libational history. Whoever buys Smiley’s will be expected to carry on the tradition. So, sorry speculators, but no condos.
“It’s being sold as a bar-hotel,” Don Deane, the current owner, told me. “I’m selling the business and the buildings in the use that they’ve had for over 100 years now.”
This fits in with a long-standing tradition of Bolinas residents fiercely protecting their culture despite the Marin County beach town increasingly becoming a destination for artistic San Francisco ex pats. Street signs directing drivers to the town have been known to mysteriously disappear, and a New York Times reporter was warned earlier this year that his tires might get slashed. One Bolinas musician said he only returned my phone call to discourage me from writing about Smiley’s (a request as sure to elicit disappointment as telling a police officer to search everywhere but the trunk).
Bolinas songwriter and musician Jeff Manson, who until recently hosted “some of the strangest, freest, open mics you’ll ever see” at Smiley’s, said people in Bolinas don’t have anything against outsiders. They just want the town to stay as unique and awesome as it already is. Manson sees Bolinas’ current residents as beneficiaries of hippies who came to help clean up after the 1971 oil spill, and then stayed to create their own ideal community.
“When a business turns over, it doesn’t necessarily go to someone who holds those same egalitarian beliefs,” Manson said, which is why locals can be prickly about selling to someone from out of town, or talking to reporters. “It’s often seen as hating on outsiders, but I think it’s just people who want to see the project of Bolinas succeed.”
For now, at least as far Smiley’s is concerned, the project is safe. Deane is content to wait for the right buyer. He listed the property for sale back in 2011 and then decided to keep it. This time around, he says there has been plenty of interest and lots of rumors, but nothing is settled.
“It’s ‘been sold’ about 20 times in the last two months,” he told me. “There is a current offer being considered, and there are others in the works.”
When asked if there was any chance Smiley’s would get turned into condos or a shopping mall, Deane responded with something rare in real estate reporting: a simple, straightforward answer.
“No,” he said. “I can promise you that.”
Top photo via Smiley’s Schooner Saloon Facebook, middle photos courtesy of B.G. Bates
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