Want to stay on the Bay Area’s famed floating island with palm trees and lighthouse? Now you can.
Unusual humanmade island resurrected as a destination experience in the East Bay
Long ago, while visiting Forbes Island, a popular floating restaurant near Pier 39, Tony Bennett broke out into his beloved signature song in a wine cellar deep below the waterline in San Francisco Bay.
It was Bennett’s birthday, and he and another friend came to the man-made island to tour it, recalled Forbes Thor Kiddoo, the island’s builder and then-owner.
“I was showing the wine cellar, and then he just started singing, ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco,’ and so I let him finish because he’s got a wonderful voice and it’s a famous song,” Kiddoo explained of the spontaneous intimate performance.
“We’ve had so many parties and so many great times,” he said of the floating island’s heyday.
Not everything went smoothly for Kiddoo, who built Forbes Island by hand and launched it in Sausalito in 1979. After decades of living and working there, the Brooklyn native was forced to relocate his self-propelled concrete and steel island by a state commission. He went to Antioch for several years and later built a lighthouse on the island with 56 steps.
He obtained permits to moor it between San Francisco piers 39 and 41 after deciding to turn it into a restaurant, and he ran a successful restaurant there until the island’s moorings failed in 2017 and were too expensive to repair, he said.
All good things must come to an end, and that meant handing over the keys to the floating island to Kiddoo, a self-made millionaire houseboat builder and restaurateur.
When his lease expired, Kiddoo relocated his prized floating island to a quiet mooring on the Delta at Brentwood’s Holland Tract Riverside Marina. After seeing a social media post, marina owner Kevin Hinmann persuaded him to relocate there.
“Owning a restaurant wears off pretty quick, then it’s work, work, work,” said Kiddoo, who for years shuttled customers by boat to his floating 50-by-100-foot island restaurant. “I was getting on in years. I was 79. You’re supposed to retire at the age of 80, you know.”
But it was clear Hinmann was not going to buy the island; he later declared bankruptcy. Sean Faul, a sailor/investor, stepped in and formed Seastar Marine with Eric Goodman to buy it for an undisclosed sum.
After visiting the island and seeing its collection of nautical memorabilia, Faul was impressed, with living quarters reminiscent of Jules Verne’s legendary Captain Nemo.
“I went aboard and found it incredible, like everything was actually real and functional aboard, and that it had been built by some professionals with long experience in everything from wooden boat building to retrofitting barges and things like that for use as regular vessels,” he explained.
Faul added that he later realized the floating island barge had been many things over the years, from a home for Forbes (he lived there for 23 years) to a party venue, a restaurant, and now an event center with lodging.
“Because I have a lifetime of history with being on the water, sailing power boats and then protecting submarine architecture, I felt an immediate kind of an affinity for every part of it,” Faul explained, adding that he quickly drew others in to invest in the island and volunteer with its restoration.
“We’ve worked hard to bring it back to what it was originally intended to be, which was sharing the experience of being on the water in a kind of mystical or magical place with the public,” he explained.
Tom Bishop of San Francisco, who is now the group’s chief financial officer, was one of those Faul hired early on.
Bishop was taken aback by what lay beneath the rocks and sand, palm trees, and lighthouse.
“When you go down into the depths, you see, well, there’s this bar and this huge ornate fireplace and lounge, and all sorts of diving gear and memorabilia and paintings and everything,” he explained. “It was a hidden treasure.” Many people visit and fall in love with the place.”
However, after a couple of years of hard work, the island’s owners realized they were making less progress than they had hoped. Their marine insurance had expired, and then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, making it impossible to conduct business.
The investors decided to form a board, with nearby property owner Heidi Petty joining in and assisting with day-to-day operations.
With conflict brewing with the new marina owner, who had different plans for his property, the Forbes investors knew they needed to relocate. Petty, who owns a cattle ranch on nearby Bradford Island, stepped in and offered to moor the floating island there. But getting there wasn’t easy; the group had to first help local experts purchase a crane boat to transport the island barge to its new home.
“It was a haphazard pirates’ adventure,” Petty remarked.
“I basically had my farmer who had just returned from fighting in Ukraine and had brought with him an American Ukrainian with him.” We had two huge, strong military men on hand to assist with the move.”
The strength was required to lift thousands of pounds of rope and a 2,000-pound cement piling, which would serve as a temporary mooring for Forbes’ new home. Then came the storms as they attempted to anchor the island.
“We had these temporary docks set up to get to land, and the storms were ripping them apart,” Petty explained.
The crew was trapped on Forbes Island for several days because there was no way to land, she said.
“I have nightmares about sleeping on floors attached to one spud (piling) and this massive Island swinging out into the river and then swinging back,” she explained.
Petty and his crew had no choice but to seek assistance from their friends who were participating in Ephemerilse, an annual event that brings out boat lovers to raft together and party in the Delta.
“So we kind of called in the troops, and we finally got it all done,” she explained.
“It’s very stable now,” she explained. “It looks fantastic. It’s simply breathtaking.”
The group is also attempting to go off-grid for power and water. For groups interested in renting Forbes Island, which only has two bedrooms, an off-grid campground has been added.
The owners promote their island getaway as being only an hour from San Francisco, with no noise ordinance, complete privacy, and friendly neighbors — the wildlife.
The group held a fundraiser last year and is planning another one — “Secrets of the Sea Circus” — from September 29 to October 1 to help keep the legendary island afloat.
Faul said he has become friends with Kiddoo, who now lives in Napa Valley and has been invited to all of the island’s events.
“He likes the fact that we’re promoting it as an event center,” Faul explained. “He (Kiddoo) would bring everyone from movie stars to common folk and people he met on the streets to spend a couple hours, spend the night, or just hang out with him.”
Kiddoo reflected on the fact that he had been a celebrity for much of his life, ever since he built the unique floating island, stories of which appeared in publications all over the world, including the front page of the Wall Street Journal, and on TV shows such as “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”
But one thing is certain: Kiddoo will never refer to his unique 700-ton creation as anything other than a “island.”
“There are no palm trees around the shoreline of barges.” Or perhaps sand on the beach. There is no boat on the planet with sand on its deck. It’s a small island.”
