The Bay Area’s only private island, reportedly won in a bet, is for sale with an asking price of $25 million.
Touring one of Chris Lim’s San Francisco Bay Area real estate listings requires a trip across the water. As former president of Christie’s International Real Estate, he’s had his share of unique listings.
“I’ve been selling real estate for 21 years. I love a really interesting challenge,” he said. “A fire station, a church, a parking lot.”
But a $25,000,000 private island?
“This is my very first one,” he said.
Lim is the listing agent for the only private island in San Francisco Bay: Red Rock Island. It’s the giant rock that sits just a stone’s throw from the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. It’s a place that most people in the Bay Area know about, but know little to nothing about.
Just ask Armando Flores, the CEO of North Bay Charters & Marine Services, who makes a living sailing people.
“Almost every weekend. It’s a good spot – lots of fish in the area – good striped bass fishing, sightseeing, I take people out to take pictures for weddings,” he said. “People always ask, ‘Who owns this place? Who owns it?'”
Apart from a lot of birds, no one lives on the island. But according to Lim, the 5.8-hectare island is indeed owned by a family and has served as a family heirloom for decades.
“The island was acquired by my client, the sellers, many, many years ago on a bet,” Lim said. “It was a gem dealer who moved to Bangkok and a lawyer who made a bet that whoever lived the longest would acquire the island.”
Legend has it that the island has been uninhabited since the 1850s, long before the San Francisco skyline emerged. That’s a major selling point for Lim.
“It really is an iconic view,” he said. “It’s one of the most unique and iconic private islands in the world.”
Over the past 50 years, ideas to develop the island have never come to fruition. At one point in the 1980s, there was talk of building a casino.
“There have been unsolicited bids for the purchase of the island in the past. But this is the very first time it is being offered to the general public,” Lim said.
And apparently there are interested buyers.
“It’s like selling a very rare painting,” he said. “They’ve been really serious. I think there are people who are really intrigued and have followed the story of the island.”
Officers flew in from Miami and New York to see it for themselves.
“We’ve had a lot of interest. We’ve had two bids. We’re now working with an active bid for the island,” he said. “It’s not a typical transaction. But I’ll tell you, all the buyers that were interested were all cash.”
The feasibility of actually building something on Red Rock Island remains somewhat questionable. Furthermore, building something could be complicated by the bureaucracy that would likely come with the geographic location of the island.
“It’s a little more complex because we’re in three counties: San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa,” Lim said.
He believes there is a good chance that whoever buys the island will also want to preserve this valuable part of the bay.
“There’s a lot of interest in preserving the island and finding a buyer who wants to keep the island exactly the way it is,” he said. “That’s really who I’d like to find as the buyer and next caretaker of this incredible private island, Red Rock Island.”
