Bleu Baie Tavern: A Sordid Tale of Arson and Murder
by Dewey Livingston
Seafood restaurants have long been a fixture on the shore of West Marin’s Tomales Bay. The bounty of the bay and sea, including oysters, clams, salmon and halibut, have long been featured at these reasonably-priced establishments, most of which had quirky old salts as owners and hosts. These establishments were particularly popular with day-trippers from the Sacramento Valley, where the ocean’s cooling fogs provided relief from the summer heat. Only two veteran restaurants remain in operation-Nick’s Cove and Tony’s Seafood (a relative newcomer, The Marshall Store, was long a fish market with some food service under the Vilicich family)-but during the 1950s there was a string of them, from Jensen’s Oyster Beds down to Tony’s, and located at the geographical center the ill-fated Bleu Baie Tavern.
Bleu Baie Tavern got its start as Larry’s Oyster House, operated by retired wrestler and local oysterman Larry Jensen. He and his wife Mary came to Tomales Bay in 1933 to run a sheep and poultry ranch before going into oyster cultivation. He opened the oyster house and bar around 1940, offering not only seafood and drinks but also boating and rental cabins. In late 1946 Jensen offered the place for sale, including the bar and restaurant, cabins, boats and 400 feet of bay frontage for $27,500. Burt Hazen and his son-in-law Elmo “Jack” Hewlett bought the property and renamed the place the Bleu Baie Tavern.
“It was a pretty good sized dining room, more modern inside than what Nick [Kojich, of Nick’s Cove] had at that time,” recalled Mary Zimmerman who worked there in the late 1940s. “They served lunch and dinner, mainly seafood; everybody came for oysters, raw oysters on the half shell, Rockefeller, and fried, but it wasn’t barbecued in those days.” Mrs. Zimmerman worked weekends before starting her family on a nearby ranch. “We were fairly busy, but sometimes it was very slow, there just wasn’t the people around, but it was one of the only places that served a real dinner.” Occasionally a local meeting took place in the big dining room.
Philip and Margie Provenzano from Los Angeles joined Hewlett and his wife as partners in late 1949, and two years later sold to Peter E. Firpo. Within months, Firpo became ill and sold the restaurant. “Mrs. Jack Miller of Tomales has been keeping the restaurant going temporarily,” reported the Petaluma Argus-Courier. “A wonderful cook, her services will be missed by those who have sampled her seafood dinners.” In April of 1952 veteran restaurateurs Stan and Peg Humphries took over and remodeled the restaurant. Their grand opening on April 19 included dancing and refreshments, and eventually the tavern got mention in Herb Caen’s column in the San Francisco newspaper. However, after a year and a half in operation, the Humphries’ found that the water supply wasn’t adequate as promised by Firpo, and won a settlement allowing reversal of the sale. The place closed for a period.
With the next owners came a chain of events that rattled western Marin County and became a dark tale of arson and murder extending over thirty years. Malcolm Schlette, with wife Frances, daughter Wanda and son Jimmy, bought the tavern in May 1954. The new owners reopened the restaurant on a grueling schedule of seven days a week with breakfast, lunch and dinner. In addition to seafood, they offered steak and chicken, a soda fountain, and catering, all at “reasonable prices.”
Life was not well with the Schlettes. Shortly after opening the restaurant, Malcolm Schlette, whose parents operated a popular restaurant outside the entrance to Muir Woods National Monument, was involved in a serious auto accident in which his son was critically injured with brain damage; upon recovery, the son was sent to juvenile hall for unknown reasons. Malcolm Schlette was apparently traumatized by the incident and committed to Napa State Hospital for a time. Upon his return, Schlette’s wife filed for divorce after her husband allegedly set a fire at the tavern-possibly with murder in mind-and so he moved out. Mrs. Schlette gained possession of the property in the settlement.
Then, in the early morning of February 23, 1955, the Bleu Baie Tavern burned to the ground. Mrs. Schlette was away at the time, and lone cabin guest Louis Sanguinetti said that, by the time he was awoken by Mrs. Schlette’s barking dog, the entire complex was ablaze. The fire destroyed phone lines, so no one could call for help until a neighbor, Roy Elmore got Charles Johnson to drive to Tomales for help, which arrived 45 minutes later, too late to save anything. Damages were estimated at $21,000.
With the previous fire still considered to be suspicious, fire officials immediately suspected arson. Two weeks later Malcolm Schlette was apprehended on Lucas Valley Road in San Rafael, after he had fled a fire in a boarding house that killed eight people. He admitted to setting the fires at the Bleu Baie Tavern but denied starting the fatal fire. Officials considered Schlette to possibly be mentally ill, and the sensational story was reported all over the country. Schlette had endured abuse as a child, been committed to the mental hospital and had been, according to his estranged wife, insecure, paranoid and unhappy about his lack of success in providing for his family. Schlette claimed that his wife was unfaithful.
Marin County District Attorney William O. Weissich prosecuted Schlette in court, where he was found guilty of arson in just the first Bleu Baie Tavern case-not the fire that destroyed the buildings-and sentenced to two to 20 years in prison. No charges were pressed in the fatal San Rafael fire, but Schlette was enraged at his arson conviction despite his earlier admission of guilt. He claimed that his taped confession was part of a “deal” by which he could be committed to the state hospital, yet court-appointed psychiatrists claimed that Schlette was not mentally ill. To add to the insult, his 15-year-old daughter testified against him, and his 12-year-old son remained confined in Marin County Juvenile Hall at the time of the trial. Schlette was sent to San Quentin Prison, and his appeals for probation were denied. He was eventually paroled after serving eleven years but disappeared upon release; as a fugitive it was said that he carried a list of people destined for revenge, including the judge, prosecutor, and law enforcement personnel including Point Reyes Station’s popular constable, Bill Christensen. Police apprehended Schlette and returned him to prison to serve out his sentence.
Malcolm Schette was released from prison in 1975 but continued to get into trouble and ended up on probation. He remained deeply bitter about his prosecution and vowed to kill Weissich and four others whose names appeared on a hit list Schlette had compiled. In 1986, under the name of Mr. Kauffman, he made an appointment with now-private attorney Weissich and, wearing a black trench coat, went to Weissich’s north San Rafael office and shot him to death. While being pursued by police, which required stopping traffic on Highway 101, Schlette gulped poison and died. Police found an old hand grenade and fake sticks of dynamite on Schlette’s body. In his Santa Rosa apartment Schlette left a note about acts of violence he would “perpetrate against my enemies” and had shipped two trunks of documents to a San Francisco Chronicle writer to posthumously back up his claim of false conviction.
Malcolm Schlette was very likely mentally ill and known to be dangerous. His treatment today would no doubt have been different. But half a century ago, lack of knowledge and general ignorance sometimes led to tragic events such as these.
The Bleu Baie Tavern was never rebuilt. Some of the cabins were remodeled, and other waterfront homes line the shore of picturesque “Bleu Baie” today.
Originally published at https://annetkent.kontribune.com.
