A hillside of wood frame houses above a houseboat marina, where Foul Play and Zodiac used real houseboats as their characters' homes.
What Sausalito looks like
runs along the waterfront as the town's main street, past the ferry landing and Plaza Viña del Mar. Restaurants and galleries fill two and three storey buildings along it, with storefront awnings and parked cars along the curb. runs one block inland, with a market, a coffee shop and plainer storefronts than the waterfront strip.
Above downtown, wood frame cottages and larger houses climb the hillside in overlapping tiers, some reached only by pedestrian stairways rather than a driveway. The on Central Avenue is built directly into the slope, its exposed Craftsman timber beams and windows facing the bay and Mount Tamalpais.
More than four hundred houseboats occupy the north end of town on Richardson Bay, at communities including , and Waldo Point Harbor. Some began as working boats and still show it, a patched hull and portholes beside a two storey house built straight onto a barge, with a rooftop deck and potted flowers on the dock in place of a yard. Near downtown, rows of attached brick townhouses sit directly against the water behind a low seawall, their balconies facing the bay.
Shot in Sausalito
Foul Play used a houseboat at Yellow Ferry Dock as Tony Carlson's home, and Zodiac used one on as Paul Avery's. The Streets of San Francisco shot exteriors at the Alta Mira Hotel as the fictional Pinewood Lodge, a hillside hotel since converted into a rehab facility.
Foul Play and Zodiac
Both productions used a real houseboat in Sausalito's Floating Homes district as a character's home, thirty years apart. Both are set in the San Francisco Bay Area, so Sausalito plays itself in each.
Foul Play, 1978
Yellow Ferry Harbor
The houseboat Galatea, home to Chevy Chase's character in Foul Play, was moored at 15 Yellow Ferry Dock. The dock is a private mooring in Sausalito's Floating Homes district, on the north end of town where houseboats line several docks including Yellow Ferry Harbor.
Zodiac, 2007
Varda Landing Road
Zodiac used a houseboat at 62 Varda Landing Road as reporter Paul Avery's home. Varda Landing Road is a private houseboat lane in the same Floating Homes district, near Galilee Harbor's public dock.
What Sausalito can double for
Tiburon, California
Tiburon's Main Street runs along the water at the foot of a hillside covered in houses, the same massing as Bridgeway below Sausalito's hillside. It has no houseboat community, so a script that needs both together still has to use Sausalito. Tiburon's Main Street is shorter and its hillside is more heavily wooded, which shows in a wide shot from the water. Try searching hillside main street now.
Lake Union in Seattle, Washington
The floating homes along Lake Union's eastern shore are wood framed and individually built, the same houseboat character as Sausalito's docks. Snow capped peaks stand behind Lake Union rather than the bare golden hills behind Richardson Bay. Lake Union's homes sit closer together on straighter docks, so a wider shot shows a denser marina than Sausalito's. Try searching wood framed floating homes now.
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport's working harbor sits below a hillside of shingled houses in a similar arrangement to Sausalito, with boatyards and docks still active along the water. The stock runs older and grander, with more stone foundations and slate roofs than Sausalito's wood frame houses. Newport's colonial and Victorian detailing marks it as New England rather than California in a close shot, so wider harbor views hold the match better. Try searching shingled harbor hillside houses now.
