Buyer found for San Francisco Bay’s only private island

The San Francisco Bay’s only private island has found a buyer, confirmed its listing agent, Chris Lim of Christie’s International Realty. Lim listed the property for $25 million late last year and it went into contract last month, but we likely won’t find out until 2025 who the buyer is or what it sold for. 

“It will be a lengthy process with close of escrow not happening till next year,” said Lim, who otherwise could not speak about the deal due to an NDA, though he was able to share that he gave “numerous tours” to potential buyers who were local, national and international. 

Some had “a vision for development” while others “recognized the unique opportunity to conserve the island in its current natural state,” he said. 

Development would be difficult given that the island currently has no dock, potable water or electricity, is located in three counties, and would also need permission from the California Coastal Commission. It is only accessible via private boat or helicopter. 

Situated on the boundaries of San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa, just south of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, the 5.8-acre rocky island rises about 180 feet out of the water and has views of the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mount Tamalpais and Belvedere Island. Its signature red color comes from the manganese that was once mined on it in the 19th Century to be turned into paint pigment in Europe, Lim said in a promotional video for the listing.

“This is a once in a lifetime chance to indulge in the ultimate island fantasy,” Lim said in the video. 

The island was purchased by attorney and gem dealer David Glickman for less than $50,000 in 1964. He was interested in “unusual, offbeat” properties, “which with some imagination could be made into something worthwhile,” he told NPR in 2007 when he was asking $10 million, not including mineral rights. He visited Alcatraz as a lawyer when it was still a working jail and said his nearby island was “ugly” but “much more pleasant” than the famous windswept prison. 

Seller Brock Durning inherited the property from his late father Mack Durning, who was Glickman’s business partner. Exactly how and why the elder Durning became the owner is unclear, however. 

His ex-wife Mona told the East Bay Times in 2016 that her then-husband got a 50 percent ownership 40 years prior when Glickman moved to Hawaii and eventually Thailand. Glickman died in 2011 and Durning told SFGate the following year that his ownership came in lieu of a debt and that he made monthly payments on it for 18 years before owning it outright. Lim told CBS News that Durning got the property because he won a bet with Glickman over who would live the longest. 

Durning died in 2012 and his son, who now lives in Alaska, told Mansion Global that he and his brothers visited the island for picnics and hikes in their childhood.

Plans to build everything from a hotel and casino to a botanical garden have not come to fruition over the years. It has been uninhabited since a lone hunting cabin was built in the 1850s, except for the many sea birds that call it home. 

The island has unofficially been on and off the market for decades, with the most infamous potential buyer Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, whose salad-bar-poisoning Oregon commune was the subject of the Netflix documentary “Wild Wild Country.” But he had to leave the country as part of a plea deal in 1985, putting an end to the sale.

This is the first time the listing has appeared on the MLS and Lim said determining the asking price was “a carefully considered process” that took into account the island’s uniqueness. 

“The interest was both robust and diverse, reflective of the island being the only private island in the San Francisco Bay,” he said, adding that the family “is extremely happy as they are able to use the proceeds to provide support for their ailing mother.”

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Though Red Rock Island is the only private island for sale in San Francisco Bay, the wider Bay Area does have another private island for sale. Point Buckler Island, which has 50 flat acres in Grizzly Bay near Suisun City, came to market last fall asking $75 million. In March, the price dropped to $50 million. 

Point Buckler Island lies about 40 miles inland on the border of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.