Stewart Brand sells his seaworthy Sausalito houseboat to tech CEO

After a year on the market and a major price chop, Mirene, the beloved Sausalito houseboat of Whole Earth Catalog creator Stewart Brand and wife Ryan Phelan, has found a buyer. WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg confirmed to The Standard that he’s buying Mirene and the couple’s smaller houseboat on a neighboring dock.

“I’ve been a lifelong fan of Ryan and Stewart’s work,” Mullenweg said via email. “My mother [has] followed Stewart Brand since the ’60s.” 

The deal is in contract, but both sides declined to reveal the price. Mirene, the only Sausalito houseboat that’s allowed to leave the dock, was listed for $1 million, while the smaller vessel was priced at $500,000.

Mullenweg said he was told of the listings by several friends, including Ed Cooke, cofounder of the language learning app Memrise, who “usually points me in the direction the universe wants.” 

The deal comes during a tumultuous professional period for Mullenweg. The board of directors of WordPress.com parent Automattic last week put him on a paid leave of absence as CEO. The next day, he was returned to power, and now Automattic’s board is being replaced, according to TechCrunch (opens in new tab).

Mullenweg wrote in his blog about making an offer to the counterculture and tech icon. He didn’t mention the corporate upheaval but told TechCrunch he is “a pirate.” Now he’s about to own two boats. 

The sale is bittersweet for Brand and especially Phelan, who seemed to be having a harder time giving up the vessel when The Standard spoke to the couple last year. They had spent decades renovating and sailing the 1912 former tugboat after buying it in the early 1980s. They now live primarily on a waterfront property in Petaluma, though Phelan bought another houseboat in Sausalito to maintain ties with the community. 

Two years of restoration made Mirene livable. The former pilot house provides the only bedroom. What was the engine room is now a sunken living room with French doors leading to the aft deck. The boat even has a bit of pop music lore: a wooden table the couple added to the dining room is supposedly where Otis Redding sat to write “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay” while staying on a nearby houseboat.

Mirene was listed last fall at $1.8 million. In July, the couple dropped it by $100,000. When that failed to do the trick, they slashed it in August to $1 million. Their other houseboat also got a “massively improved price” of $450,000 after initially asking $700,000, according to listing notes from Compass agent Steve Sekhon.

Sekhon said the second price cut came because Mirene had been on the market for nearly a year without any offers, despite its refurbished condition and the opportunity for a “unique and adventurous lifestyle.”

“We weren’t attracting the perfect people for her,” he said. “Lowering the price drastically enhanced visibility and resulted in the ideal stewards showing up.”

Brand apparently didn’t expect Mirene to sell so quickly after the cut, posting on X (opens in new tab) that prospective buyers could check it out at the Sausalito Boat Show later this month.

Houseboat sales in Sausalito are averaging slightly below list price, said Sekhon, but activity is up. He and his wife have lived in a nearby houseboat since 2009, and he said the community has always attracted “free thinkers.” 

“Living in such a radically dynamic environment with so many everyday elements in flux stimulates the creative impulse,” he said. “People who have already been extremely creative seem to intuitively understand and are attracted to that.” 

At the time of the initial listing, Sekhon described the smaller vessel as a privacy hedge for the Mirene buyer to shield themselves from neighbors’ prying eyes or a “pied à mer” for someone from the North Bay or San Francisco who might want to buy it separately.

Unlike many buyers who seek to maintain their anonymity, Mullenweg readily identified himself as the soon-to-be owner.

“It is an honor and privilege to carry forward the stewardship and love Ryan and Stewart have put into Mirene, the boat with all the luck, to a new generation,” he said. “After a few decades, I hope to have a chance to pass Mirene on to someone who will care just as much.”

The lovefest appears to be mutual.

“I expect Mirene will be lucky for them too, as she was for us,” Brand said.