Our Intrepid Reporter Tries to Get in on the St. Francisco Yacht Club’s Steal of a Deal – but Nothing Doing

By David Fear

Imagine that you’re interested in acquiring some real estate in one of San Francisco’s most picturesque and romantic neighborhoods. But, lets be frank: You’re not a member of Willie Brown’s crony fraternity, you’ve never cashed in any Pets.com stock when it was worth more than $.0006 on the dollar and you’ve never drummed for Metallica, so far as you can remember. Chances are it would be easier to get clean Kool-Aid at Guyana than get your mitts on leasing waterfront Marina District property. And while your mind is stuck in its most fancy-free and imaginative of states, let us pretend you suddenly stumbled across a real estate flyer that read:

PRIME WATERFRONT
PROPERTY AVAILABLE!*

-6000 sq. ft. located not near, not “close to”, not within spitting distance but ON the San Francisco Marina’s north shore
-Gorgeous, unimpeded view of Golden Gate Bridge
-Conveniently located near famous swinging-singles Safeway
-Plenty of room for parking your yacht
-Potential for lots of closet room to store cool Captain’s hats (Toni Tenille not included)
-Monthly rent: $4,399 (additional “dry storage” fee: $1,777)

*To be used for maritime purposes, please.

It would seem too good to be true, wouldn’t it? The funny thing is, it is true if you’re the St. Francis Yacht Club. And a few might even say you’re getting the crown jewel of San Francisco’s waterfront property for something close to a steal.

I decided one evening on a whim that I wanted to win the World Cup (the sailing one). If I was going to accomplish my minutes-old dream I figured that it might be a good idea to join a prestigious yachting club. I dialed the St. Francis’s number.

“St Francis Yacht Club”, a young woman’s answered.

“Yes, I’d like to become a member.” A minute of silence followed, punctuated by a nervous giggle.

“Well, in order to become a member, you’ve got to be ‘sponsored’.”

“Sponsored?”

“Um, yes. By another member of the club.”

“Well, I don’t know any other members. How might I meet them, so that they may sponsor me?”

“Ah, er…well, let me transfer you to the Membership office…”. A click, two beeps, and then a dial tone.

The St. Francis Yacht Club technically is on “public” land, but like most things in life, it’s not quite as simple as that. The club has been around since the 1927, leasing land located right on the tip of San Francisco’s northern bay coast from the city’s Park & Recreation Department. The club’s current lease was renovated and re-signed in 1973, and is up in 2014.

The reason I called the St. Francis was that their lease refers to the club repeatedly as a non-profit organization “organized for the purpose of developing and promoting aquatic sport.” Sounds inviting, doesn’t it?

The question is, developing and promoting it for whom? Well, for the people they deem worthy, i.e. those upper crust folk that wouldn’t have a problem paying the club’s undoubtedly costly monthly membership fees. Private “social clubs” that charge membership “dues” can, under Section 501 (C) (7), file for a form of non-profit status and get tax exemption…and non-profit arts organization, i.e. the San Francisco Ballet, often charge exorbitant fees. Undoubtedly, membership funds go towards care and maintenance of the facilities, payment to the staff and towards the club’s restaurant.

But a 1999 article in the San Francisco Chronicle quoted the club’s monthly lease of the land as $4,250 (a later article ups the figure slightly, and a call to their landlord, the S.F. Park & Rec. dept., quoted it as $4,399 + the aforementioned “dry storage fee” of $1,777, putting the current total up to $6,176). Estimates for residential real estate on the Marina run between $2-3 million dollars, with most of the houses occupied by owners as opposed to renters; commercial value for the district’s properties are said to run as high as a third of that. The St. Francis clubhouse has an estimated worth of $6.8 million.

Park & Rec., as they are known colloquially, is supported by the tax dollars of San Francisco residents: services such as the maintenance of Golden Gate Park’s greenery, the hiking trails which run from the Cliff House to the edge of Baker Beach and several other outdoor public areas falls under their jurisdiction. Recently, several Park &Rec. offices open to the public were closed around the city due to “financial unfeasibility” and a strained budget. Meanwhile, a club that serves the needs of a relatively select elite still pays a pauper’s rent while much-needed public resources wither and die due to a lack of funds. Unlike the majority of San Franciscans, the St. Francis actually can afford to pay a market-rate rent thanks money derived from their ritzy, upper crust clientele. So why the hell aren’t they paying it?

I dialed again, and after several rings, a gruff male voice answered: “St Francis Yacht Club.”

“Yeah, hi”, I said by way of introduction. “I just talked to somebody about becoming a member at the St. Francis…”

“Do you have a sponsor?” he asked immediately.

“Uh, no.”

“You need a sponsor.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, in order to get into the club, you need to be sponsored by someone who is already a member here. Once they sponsor you, then you’ll be invited to a social function, and then you could possibly be eligible for membership.” I wasn’t sure he’d answered my question.

“I’m not sure you answered my question…”

“We like to have new members come by way of being recommended by a current member…it helps to keep that private club atmosphere.” This is only a comforting statement if you are already a member of said club. Otherwise, if you were so inclined, you might think that it was slightly exclusionary.

“How would I go about meeting someone, a member, who would be able to sponsor me?”

“Well, there’s the social events…but you can’t attend those unless you’re invited…you know, through business…or the course of life…”

“ ‘The course of life’…wow, that sounds so poetic.” I joked. Silence met my quip. “So, let me get this straight: I can only get in through sponsorship from a member…but I’m not allowed to come to the social events to meet them, and if I don’t know any already, I’m sort of screwed, aren’t I?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“But aren’t you guys located on land designated for public use?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name…”

I had to think fast. “Larry Ellison”, I replied.

Once more, all I heard was the dial tone.

If you were to go to sfgate.com to search the online archives of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, respectively, and you typed in a combined search for stories on the “St. Francis Yacht Club” and “Gavin Newsom”, one of the city’s supervisors and a longtime proponent of reform in the Marina District, you’d get back some rather interesting results. They are interesting in that they don’t deal directly with the St. Francis Yacht Club, per se, but with the their neighbors, the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

Three years ago, the Golden Gate Yacht Club was also a private yachting club catering to the both the area’s old money and nouveau riche. When the club tried to get both their 40-year lease extended and to get their rent to the Park & Rec. department, as well as getting away with owing over $100,000 in back rent, the board of supervisors cried foul. Newsom had been trying to organize a city fund that would improve some potentially hazardous and decrepit areas of the city’s waterfront areas, and naturally felt that residents of the affected areas ought to be contributing. That included the club.

Upon finding out that the GG Yacht Club was only paying $4,500 in monthly rent (or, if higher, 7.5% of their restaurant and bar receipts), Newsom and the board negotiated a new deal: The club’s rent was raised, the percentage for service receipts was upped to 10%, the lease was reduced to twenty-five years (options for market rate consideration are available every five years), and the club had to start paying their back rent with interest. Also, interestingly enough, their status as a private “members-only” organization had to change. They had to provide youth sailing programs open to members of the general public, and provide public access to the club for a select amount of days during their operating week.

Both the Chronicle and the Examiner each ran an article on the day the club’s new deal was announced: January 9th, 1999. Each article mentions the St. Francis at their respective climaxes, saying the supervisors were gunning for them as well as they were paying cheaper rates than the Golden Gate. A later article in regards to Newsom’s attempt to attach parking rates to the Marina’s plentiful free-parking lot makes scant mention to the St. Francis, but what it does say is rather telling. In response to Newsom’s claim that out-of-town commuters are trucking into the city, hogging the free Marina parking spaces and catching the bus downtown to their jobs, thus bypassing the pricey downtown parking rates, the article’s author contends that he went to check out the situation at 1:30pm on a weekday afternoon. He claimed that most of the spaces were empty, refuting Newsom’s commuter-hog conspiracy, but that “it is true that most of the cars were parked near the St. Francis…whose members could probably afford a few dollars for parking.” Apparently, however, the club these members belong to can’t afford to pay the market value on their property; and judging from the acquiescence of the city’s government, it’s something they won’t have to worry about for a long, long time.
I figured the third time might be a charm, so I dialed once more and when I heard the familiar strains of “St Francis Yacht Club”, I immediately adopted the poshest upper crust British accent I could muster. I was getting desperate.

“(ahem) Ahhh, yes, I’m quite int-err-esss-ted in becoming a member of your little club…”

“Did you just call here?” Shit!

“I do beg your parrrr-don?”

“What part of England is that accent from?!?”

“Uh…Swindbourne-on-thistle…?”

The dial tone greeted me once more like a long, lost friend.
While we are on the subject of out-of-towners, there is also the question of the club’s membership. It’s been rumored that a good portion of the club’s members aren’t even residents of San Francisco but denizens of the North Bay and Peninsula. A private club can admit members from anywhere it deems appropriate, but considering the land belongs to a city agency that’s giving them the property for a song, it seems ironic that the people benefiting from the space aren’t even fellow San Franciscans.

The editor of Bay Crossings asked the St. Francis commodore Charlie Hart point-blank in a recent interview exactly how many of the club’s 2300 members were actual residents of San Francisco, and Hart declined to give specifics on the grounds that membership data is confidential. He couldn’t divulge what a typical member’s monthly dues were by invoking this same principle, but did admit that the club was comprised of roughly 50-50 San Francisco residents and non-San Francisco residents, and that the preconception of “a bunch of rich old white guys” lounging around the club was a fallacy; the current roster of members has gotten much younger and diverse over the years.

A hearty “Bravo!” to the club for allowing younger rich white guys, or older rich guys of an origin other than Anglo-European, into the club; my assumption that we were still, in fact, living in the twenty-first century was not unfounded. But while Hart respectfully views the geographic membership breakdown with an optimistic “glass half-full” attitude, it’s also tempting to look at this particular glass of seawater as half-empty. While the majority of members aren’t non-residents, they aren’t exactly the minority, either.

To be fair, Hart did acknowledge that a higher rent should be paid and that the club would renegotiate their lease but that the “political climate isn’t right just now”. He also felt that San Franciscans needed to appreciate that a state mandate has issued that the land be used strictly for maritime recreation purposes, and that the club has been active in supporting various community and charitable causes. Unafraid to expound on this particular membership-related fact, an e-mail detailing several activities relating to the club’s activities with the Coast Guard Foundation, the SF Maritime Museum and members’ involvement with research on fighting breast cancer.

You’d have to be a dyed-in-the-wool cynic to dismiss these activities and charitable gestures as anything but kind-heartedness, and the club is certainly commended for it’s work with said organizations. And yet, while keeping their philanthropic actions in mind, one can’t help but also think of the San Francisco community at large that isn’t benefiting from the sad state of the Rec and Park Dept., and how they are being deprived of using R&P utilities due to the club’s rent that still remains suspiciously low.

A search for stories concerning the club and Newsom for the year 1999, when Newsom first started seriously pushing for waterfront reform, brings up five articles that broach the issue of lease renegotiation. Search during the year 2000, and two articles, both dated June 16th, appear concerning an audit on management of Marina Yacht Harbor. The Chronicle’s piece mentions that the St. Francis seemed willing to up their annual rent if they could extend their lease past the 2014 end date; the city rejected the offer under those terms. As for a follow-up to that particular story…a search for the year 2001 using the same search query, or even one featuring the addition of the word “lease”, only brings up a small tidbit concerning Oracle bigwig and prospective World Cup champion Larry Ellison. Search the year 2002, already close to half over as of press time, and one gets nothing back. The deduction that the story seems to have been dropped altogether is evident. Why have the Golden Gate Yacht Club found themselves the target of reform and yet the St. Francis still gets away with passive robbery? When will the political climate be suitable for renegotiation, especially if no one seems to be pushing for it? One has to wonder.

It’s an argument with which the Rec and Park department itself is intimately familiar. Bringing the subject up in a phone conversation with a R&P official, a long sigh could be heard in reply. “Yes, this is an argument that has certainly come up before…let me call you back and see if I can get you an answer on this.” A half-hour later, the answer was supplied: The lease for the land on which the St. Francis house their building (which is owned by the club) does belong to the Recreation and Park Department of San Francisco, but it was inherited by the department from an agreement negotiated by the club with first the state government, and then the local government some years ago. When the department received the lease, it was specified that the previous agreement had to be honored until the leases’ end. In other words, for the moment, the club was destined to keep their low rent for the unforeseen future.

The temptation to think, “score one more for the old-boys network” was overwhelming. As a bona fide resident of San Francisco for close to a decade, I am the last person in the world to demand that someone actually be forced to pay more rent in what is considered the second most expensive city to live. But in an area where hard-working citizens struggle to piece together outrageously high prices for claustrophobic living spaces every month, this club located in prime real estate and catering to the crème de la crème of the social set that basks in their sweetheart deal smacks of financial loopholes and back-slapping politics at its worst. The St. Francis seems to be, in a word, untouchable.

As my car coasted over the hill past Broadway St. towards the Marina, I could see the Bay reflecting the sun back at me. Parking in the still-free parking lot near Fort Mason, I walked along the waterfront towards the Spanish Mission-style building of the club. I figured that it would be impossible to hang up on me if I was standing in front of them; they would, of course, be reduced to throwing me out or, worse, calling the police and alerting them to complaints of non-member riff-raff contaminating their bubble-like existence.
As I strode up to the door, fake English accent and friendly

 “Hi-nice-to-meet-you-are-you-a-member-and-could-you-sponsor-me-as-I’ve-just-met- you-through-the-course-of-life?” handshake at attention, I saw the intimidating “Members Only” posted at the door. I watched the members within scurry about for a moment, noticing that a few were casting reproachful glances my way. Why would I want to be a member of a club that wouldn’t ever want me as a member, I wondered rhetorically. What would I have in common with these people, except for common residency, and even that would only be with an admitted 50% of the people within the building.

I turned around and, on the way back to my car, a group of young men and women who were playing that popular proletariat sport of Frisbee tossing happen to accidentally hit me in the arm with their disc. One of the players, a kid in raggedy shorts and a grass-stained shirt, came up and apologized profusely. Hey, they were short one player…did I want to join their game?