One of the most iconic homes on South Forty Pier is on the market.
The Mirene is a beautifully restored, working 64-foot tugboat where writer Stewart Brand (of the Whole Earth Catalog) and his entrepreneur wife Ryan Phelan have lived for 43 years
Originally built as a gasoline schooner to serve as a cannery tender in Alaska, Mirene wound up working the Oregon and Washington coast carrying cargo and passengers from river to river and surviving fierce storms at sea. In the 1930’s, she was converted to a tugboat with a large diesel engine and she towed log rafts on the Columbia and Willamette rivers, and later she worked at sea as a fishing boat. In 1975 a creaking Mirene sailed down the coast to Sausalito to become a derelict anchor-out.
But in 1982 as luck would have it, Stewart and Ryan bought the boat, and with abundant maritime talent on the Sausalito waterfront, brought the Mirene back to life — first as a respectable houseboat on South 40 and then as a proper yacht cruising the Bay Area from Sausalito to the Sacramento Delta and out the Golden Gate. In 2021, Ryan showed her home for the FHA’s Virtual Gala.
The Mirene is now being offered for $1,800,000. More details can be found on the Compass Realty website.