Lyford House: The Tiburon Victorian That Floated Across Richardson Bay

On Greenwood Beach Road in Tiburon, a yellow Victorian looks out over Richardson Bay. It hasn't always stood there.

A dairy ranch house

Audubon says the Lyford House was built in 1876 and is one of the oldest homes in Marin County. It originally stood on the east side of Strawberry Point as the homestead of the Eagle Dairy Ranch, owned by Dr. Benjamin Lyford and his wife, Hilarita Reed. Hilarita was the daughter of John Reed, whose Mexican land grant covered what is now Tiburon, Belvedere and much of southern Marin. Wikipedia says Benjamin Lyford had been a Union Army doctor.

The barge trip

Audubon says the house was damaged in the 1906 earthquake and later neglected. By the mid-1950s, Marin Magazine says, it had been vacant for years, was rumored to be haunted, and faced the bulldozer for a new development on Strawberry Point. In 1957, Dr. David Steinhardt asked whether he could have the house if he moved it. Audubon says that with help from conservationist Caroline Livermore, architect John Lord King and tugboat operator Tom Crowley, the house was barged across the bay and winched onto 11 acres that had been deeded to the National Audubon Society by Rose Rodrigues da Fonta.

Marin Magazine says Rose, known as 'Rosie, the Goat Lady,' agreed to donate her bayfront land as long as she and her goats could stay there for the rest of her life. She died in 1980.

Saving the bay, too

The move was part of a bigger fight. Audubon says that in 1949 a developer bought 879 acres of Richardson Bay tidelands, planning a yachting harbor with as many as 2,000 homes. Residents and the National Audubon Society raised money, and by 1957 they had bought 624 acres of tidelands and the knoll along the Tiburon shore. Audubon manages them as a sanctuary for wintering waterbirds.

Wikipedia says the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. It was damaged when a tree fell through the roof in December 2002 and reopened after restoration in 2004. Marin Magazine says it has served as the headquarters of the Richardson Bay Audubon Center and Sanctuary since 1961.