Audio
#3 Houseboating: The Lewis Ark
Transcript
You’re listening to “Maritime Voices” from San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. In this episode, we’ll consider houseboating and the Lewis Ark.
Houseboating; the word conjures up images of the casual, the creative, the sumptuous lifestyle. A life afloat free from the taxing aspects of society and bureaucracy. Boats bobbing amidst sea gulls and great expanses of open space, with the sounds of wind chimes and the creaking of walkways. As early as 1890, San Franciscans began mooring small vessels in Belvedere Cove in Marin County to the north. Some as weekend residences, others as duck hunting cabins. The name “ark” was commonly used to describe a houseboat on San Francisco Bay. It is derived from the local structures similarity to Noah’s ark in moving back and forth between water and land. Most arks had vaulted roofs, four rooms, and a galley with plenty of bunks for visitors. A few were owned jointly by several families. By the turn of the century, 30 or 40 of these jaunty little vessels dotted the cove in summer. In the winter they were towed into the shelter of Belvedere Lagoon.
This ark, named the Lewis Ark, was built sometime before 1882 for the McGee Family of San Francisco. Lewis Ark was part of the Belvedere Cove community for 30 years before being brought ashore and beached at Reed Dairy Farm in Tiburon in 1923. In an article written in 1899, an English magazine, The Strand, glowed with praise for the quaint community of Belvedere Cove arks, “There is an indescribable charm about the life. One has the pleasures of boating combined with the comforts of home. Seabass are at ones very threshold. Fish are caught and cooked while you wait. The monotony of the scenery is varied by the swinging of the ark as it turns with the tide. There are neighbors, 30 or 40 families of them within easy reaching distance if one can pull a stroke, for there’s always a following of row boats, lazily resting upon the water in the wake of each ark. The butcher, the baker, and others who supply the needs of daily life each has his little boat which he sends around every morning for his customary order, and the food for dinner and the ice cream for dessert are delivered as promptly to the ark dwellers as they are to those who are still in the city.”
Description
Learn about the Lewis Ark houseboat on Hyde Street Pier.
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