You’ve probably driven on Shoreline Highway in Tam Junction past this landmark and asked, “What’s its story?” There’s a neon sign still standing that all but screams, “FIRESIDE MOTEL.”
Here’s the story. It started hundreds of years ago as a coastal Miwok fishing spot and burial ground. Then, in the late 1880s, the North Pacific Coast Railroad built a station nearby and, for unknown reasons, named it Manzanita. The railroad had not only a line, but a station in that area. And until 1931, when the first Richardson Bay Bridge was completed, Shoreline Highway was the only way to reach Sausalito and catch the ferry into San Francisco.
Some dispute the date, but many agree that in 1916, shortly after Shoreline Highway was first paved, a cigar dealer named Thomas Moore acquired the key Tam Junction property, built a distinctive two-story, two-arch edifice and, hoping to capitalize on the nearby train station, named his structure Manzanita Villa. Many say it was a tavern and dance hall and, in fact by 1923 with Prohibition in full swing, Moore made his intentions ever so clear by changing the name to Manzanita Roadhouse…