Allens to retire from Belvedere Land Co.
Family has been operating one of Marin’s oldest businesses for 82 years
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the June 28, 2017, edition of The Ark. It earned second place for Business Feature Story in the National Newspaper Association’s 2018 Better Newspapers Contest.
By MATTHEW HOSE
mhose@thearknewspaper.com
Change is coming to the company that gave the city of Belvedere its name more than a century ago.
Cousins Jim and Andrew Allen, the co-presidents of the Belvedere Land Co., will retire and turn over management of the 127-year-old company to Bayside Management, a Sausalito firm that manages properties in Marin, Napa, Sonoma, San Mateo and San Francisco counties.
Bayside owner Jeff Hacker said the company has set a tentative date of Sept. 1 for the takeover.
The Allens are the grandchildren of Harry B. Allen, the San Francisco developer who bought the land company in 1935 and oversaw development of the city, most famously by dredging the Belvedere Lagoon and creating manmade peninsulas to give nearly every new home waterfront access. The project attracted national media attention at the time.
The Allen family will retain ownership of the company, which has 137 residential units and 57 commercial units in Belvedere and Tiburon, including the Farr Cottages, The Ark Apartments and all of the commercial units in The Boardwalk Shopping Center; The Ark is among its tenants.
Andrew Allen said in an interview that both he and Jim wanted to retire, and none of the younger family members were willing to take the helm of the company.
He said he has experience with Bayside Management, as the company manages some of the properties he owns outside of the land company.
“We felt that Bayside is solid, a good company (that) provides great services and is an experienced property manager,” Allen said. “The idea is to have as little change as possible and keep up the best quality of service.”
There will be some differences, however.
Cathy Larson, the property manager at the land company for nearly 18 years and perhaps the most public face of the company for its tenants, said the company board of directors has asked her to retire, though she was uncertain of her exact retirement date by The Ark’s press deadline. She will apparently have to give up her company-owned rental unit in Belvedere.
Larson said she had already been planning to retire within the next year and a half and said she was “very, very proud” to be a part of the company and the community.
“What a great place to live and work,” Larson said.
However, Hacker said no staffing decisions have been made yet. He said the company was working to make the transition “as seamless as possible” for land company tenants and the community.
“The Belvedere Land Co. is obviously a very integral part of the history of Belvedere,” Hacker said. “Bayside definitely understands this history … and the importance of relationships. We get how important the Belvedere Land Co. is to Belvedere.”
Roger Felton, the chair of the city’s historic preservation committee, said he will be sad to see the Allens step away from the company, adding they have always been generous in supporting local projects.
“I’m going to miss them,” Felton said. “They’re hands-on people right now, and you can’t expect that from a management company. (Bayside Management) won’t have the knowledge of tradition or the loving care that the land company has provided. So it’ll be different.”
One of Marin’s oldest businesses, Belvedere Land Co. was founded in 1890 by a group of San Francisco businessmen who purchased land on what was then-known as Peninsula Island to develop a retreat from the bustle of the city. They deemed it the “lovely lazy life at Belvedere,” a name that stuck when the town — later a city — incorporated in 1896.
After Harry B. Allen bought the company and developed the lagoon, he eventually passed the company on to his two sons, David and Howard Allen, who then passed it along to their sons, Jim and Andrew Allen, respectively.
The changes to the land company come soon after another Allen bowed out of the Belvedere real estate market.
Kent Allen, Andrew’s brother, decided in March to sell the 22 units he owned on Mallard Road to Russell B. Flynn, a San Francisco-based real estate investor, for $18.2 million.
Kent Allen declined to comment on the sale, but his daughter, Jessica Allen Cleary, said most of her father’s investments are in commercial property, and he was looking to move away from managing residential properties.
Reporter Matthew Hose covers the city of Belvedere, as well as crime, courts and public safety issues on the Tiburon Peninsula. Reach him at 415–944–4627 and on Twitter at @matt_hose.
