Marshall's Waterfront Is for Sale. The Restaurant Has a Lease. The Boat Lift Has No Successor.

Skip Vilicich has been rebuilding the same boat for most of his adult life. He inherited the Blue Sea from his father in his senior year of high school. When he and his cousin Ed came back from the Coast Guard, he took it apart. "I haven't gotten it back together yet," he told the Point Reyes Light this fall. He still wants to finish it. Separately, he plans to retire from Marshall Boatworks once the family's waterfront sells, and he hopes someone else will take over.

That last hope matters more to Tomales Bay than almost anything else in the listing.

What Went on the Market

In late September, the Vilicich family listed 17 acres on the east shore of Tomales Bay for $13 million. The four parcels include the Marshall Store, the Point Reyes Oyster Company, Marshall Boatworks, the post office, a pier, four houses and 2,500 feet of shoreline. The current owners are three sisters, a brother and their cousin Skip. They are the third generation of a Croatian family whose first arrival, Nickola "Nick" Vilicich, settled in the fishing village just south of White Gulch on Tomales Point, according to historian Dewey Livingston's account as reported by the Light. The family moved across the bay to Marshall in 1927, which put them closer to the San Francisco markets, first by train and later by truck.

The property is listed, not sold. The Press Democrat reported an income picture taken from the sales brochure. The property brings in less than $400,000 a year in operating revenue against about $250,000 in expenses, for roughly $147,000 in net income. Net income at that level does not come close to explaining a $13 million price. So the price is for the shoreline and for what a new owner might do with it, and that question is why the town is watching.

Who Has Paper, and How Long It Runs

Most of the worry in Marshall has centered on the restaurant and the post office. Those are the two tenants with the clearest timelines.

Gregory told the Point Reyes Light that the restaurant generates a lot of the property's income. "I think we're a benefit to the sale," he said. The Marshall Store made the New York Times' list of the top 50 restaurants in America in October 2021. Gregory has also built a small food circuit beyond this shoreline. He took over Route One Bakery & Kitchen in 2020 and opened the taco shop Out the Door in the former K&A Take Away space in 2024.

The two newspapers describe the oyster company differently. The Light says it is run by Martin Strain. The Press Democrat quoted co-owners Lindsey and Whitt Strain, who said their family has farmed shellfish on the bay for 35 years. "We hope to continue to be good stewards and tenants there," Whitt Strain said.

A restaurant with national press, a federal tenant and a 35-year aquaculture business all give a buyer reasons to keep them, and the paper tells the town how long each is secured. No lease is reported for the bottom row of the table. The yard is run by Skip Vilicich, who is one of the sellers, and he has said he will step away once the sale closes.

The Lift Between San Francisco and Fort Bragg

The Light describes Marshall Boatworks as the only place between San Francisco and Fort Bragg with a movable boat lift that can raise heavy, deep-keeled vessels out of the water.

For about 25 years the yard was closely tied to Jeremy Fisher-Smith. A 2018 Point Reyes Light feature said he returned to West Marin in 1988 and moved his business to the yard in 2000. There he designed, built and restored classic wooden boats, including an 18-foot rowing gig for San Francisco's Dolphin Club. The feature also showed a net skiff that once fished Tomales Bay. The state's boating facility directory still lists the site as Fisher-Smith Boatworks at 19225 Highway 1. Fisher-Smith left in 2025. Since then Skip Vilicich and his friend Gene Maffucci have run the yard.

"It's hard to find anybody to do this kind of work anymore," Vilicich told the Point Reyes Light. "Everybody likes to play with a computer and a cell phone, and this is not the place for that."

The nearest haul-out alternatives with published capacity are in the inner Bay. KKMI lists 88-ton and 35-ton capacity at its Richmond yard and 50 tons at its Sausalito yard. From Tomales Bay, either one means leaving the bay and going down the coast and under the Golden Gate.

The Same Two Names Show Up on the Water

The boatworks question reaches past the yard. Private moorings in Tomales Bay fall under a NOAA program that requires approved contractors to install, inspect and maintain them. On the Greater Farallones contractor list, Skip Vilicich and Blue Sea are approved for all three. Gene Maffucci Welding is approved for maintenance and inspection. The Light separately reported that Vilicich maintains buoys in the bay.

So the two men keeping the lift running are also two of the approved names for the moorings that boat owners leave on the bay all year. One man's retirement could thin out both services at once, and no successor has been named for either.

What Comes Before Any Change

The boatworks also sits on the part of the property that needs the most work. The Light reported that a 2017 county assessment, commissioned at the family's request, strongly endorsed keeping the boat works in operation. It also listed alternatives, including a small bed and breakfast and an outdoor education center, and another county planning document suggested a community center. The same assessment found soil in the boatyard contaminated with arsenic, copper, lead and mercury from years of ship repair and painting. That has to be remediated first, and a buyer will likely need an environmental assessment to define the scope.

Most of the land is zoned village commercial-residential. County planner Immanuel Bereket told the Light that the designation is meant to keep historic village character and community scale while allowing businesses that serve both locals and visitors, plus light industrial uses like the boat works. Substantial changes would go through state and county rules that put a premium on environmental protection and public coastal access. Marin County publishes the framework behind those rules on its Local Coastal Program page. The two newspapers also differ on the agricultural piece. The Light places a single 1.5-acre agricultural parcel across Highway 1. The Press Democrat describes the agricultural parcel as wrapping around the post office and including a deep-water dock.

Local voices have mostly talked about cleanup. Dana Capiello, who sits on the board of the East Shore Planning Group, told the Press Democrat she hopes a new owner will make the site "a bigger part of the community" and "a community hub." Lindsey Strain put it more plainly in the same Press Democrat article: "Whoever buys it has a huge job ahead of them."

A Century on One Shoreline

1. About 1900: Croatian families arrive in West Marin, and Nick Vilicich settles near White Gulch on Tomales Point.
2. 1927: The family moves across the bay to Marshall.
3. 2000: Jeremy Fisher-Smith moves his wooden-boat business to the yard.
4. 2017: A county assessment endorses keeping the boat works and flags contaminated boatyard soil.
5. 2025: Fisher-Smith departs. Skip Vilicich and Gene Maffucci take over the yard.
6. 2027 and 2028: The Marshall Store's lease ends, followed by the post office's.

The two leases give the restaurant and the post office known end dates on this list. No lease is reported for the boatworks, and how long it lasts depends on whether someone who knows how to run a boat lift takes over from Skip Vilicich.

If you have a boat on a Tomales Bay mooring, or you just care about who looks after Marshall's shoreline next, B.G. Bates is following this sale closely and is glad to talk about what it could mean for the east shore. Begin your West Marin story by connecting with B.G. Bates.