Caller: “Oh, Warren, you’re so right! That man’s life would improve greatly if he gave up the bottle.”
Warren’s phone circle always included longtime members of the Sausalito Women’s League. Simply known as “The League,” it started back in the early years of the twentieth century and was organized as a clandestine effort to support the suffragette movement. Over the intervening years, the organization grew into the paramount social set for Sausalito’s established gentry.
Alma Samuels’ service as president emeritus was all the proof needed of the club’s continued high standing.
In 1976, in recognition of the American Bicentennial, Samuels—who was the one person in Sausalito in whom social and political power reached its pinnacle—formed her own tight-knit circle, which she called the Ladies of Liberty, of whom Marilyn Williams, age 72, was today its youngest member.
Within this group, Bradley’s columns were received with a blend of giggles and false admonishments. “Oh, Warren, you’re just awful!” they’d tease after he put into print a particularly nasty piece of gossip.
He’d chuckle in a conspiratorial tone and declare, “I suppose I just can’t help myself!”
Early each week, before his column was due, Warren’s phone would ring. Invariably, Alma Samuels was the caller. This served as Warren’s opportunity to invite himself up to her expansive and sadly empty mansion atop one of Sausalito’s highest points. From that lofty height, the views of Richardson Bay were a breathtaking collage of blue water and white sails, against the backdrop of the Tiburon Peninsula’s rolling green hills and opulent estates.
“Alma,” Warren said in a volume a bit higher and certainly more ominous than usual, “you will not believe the trouble Grant Randolph has gotten himself into. It’s too delicious to tell you over the phone. I have to see your reaction with my own eyes.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get yourself up here,” Alma croaked, and then announced, with a flirtatious giggle, “Prying minds need to know!”
Chapter Two
The Samuels mansion sat on a leveled lot up near the top of Monte Mar Drive. The street was less traveled than many other roads in Sausalito, all of which eventually led down to the bay and the tourist-impacted part of the small town of seventy-two hundred souls.
Its absence of traffic was one of the pluses that attracted Roger and Alma Samuels to purchase the home in 1967, well before Sausalito emerged from what many thought of as the dark days of the counterculture, highlighted by San Francisco's infamous Summer of Love.
During that era, the Samuels’ rarely visited the small downtown where, on weekends, hippies often stripped down to their underwear, or less, and frolicked in the fountain that graced the small, green, palm tree-lined city center park, Vina Del Mar. (Twenty-five years later, one of those nude bathers served a term as the city’s mayor—a topic rarely discussed in polite society.)
The Samuels homestead had been in desperate need of repair. But both Alma and Roger—a securities attorney who had a cold, distant heart and a keen mind—could see its enormous potential. The house sat on a beautiful piece of land, with broad vistas that stretched from Mount Tamalpais to the north, Berkeley to the east, and San Francisco to the south. The iconic Golden Gate Bridge was not visible because of the Marin Headlands to its southwest, but the views it did have were picture-postcard worthy. And so, the up-and-coming attorney and his adoring wife took a chance on a community that had seen grander days and put their money into the decaying mansion that had what Roger Samuels called, “respectable old bones.”
The mansion turned out to be a wise investment. What sold for ninety-five thousand dollars in 1967 was valued today at (depending on which one of Sausalito’s ever-gracious but endlessly optimistic real estate agents you asked) fifteen to eighteen million dollars.
Warren Bradley got a thrill by merely driving up to the grand old mansion.
While it was impressive, and while Roger Samuels had left a generous estate that assured Alma’s future regardless of the number of years she lived, the care she might require, or the maintenance that the old home might need, there was still a feeling of sadness and obsolescence about the place.
Alma’s one child, a daughter who had followed in her father’s footsteps and entered the world of business law, was long gone from the house. For many years, Alma had been left on her own to wander from one empty room to another. And although she tried to keep herself busy, the physical burden of her ninety years had begun to weigh heavily upon her.
Only one full-time staff person remained in Alma’s employ: Louise Allen, who over the past thirty-five years had evolved from maid to cook and finally, caretaker. It was Louise’s tired smile that greeted Warren when he rang the bell.
“Hello, Louise, how are you today?”
“Fine, Mr. Bradley. Is Ms. Alma expecting you?”
“She is indeed.”
“I’ll tell her you’re here. Go ahead and take a seat in the sunroom.”
As Louise departed, Warren paused, as he always did, to breathe in the intoxicating air of old money.
Warren had what he thought of as “acquired comfort.” He lived in a small cottage that he purchased from a lonely, childless widow, who died twenty years earlier. Some, less than kind, claimed Warren stole the house out from under her. Perhaps it was a reward for “keeping her warm at night,” they speculated. Others decided to ignore the matter entirely.
Being a cautious consumer can make up for a variety of financial shortcomings. Bypassing Sausalito’s outrageously expensive grocery stores and various food boutiques in favor of salmon, steaks, and chicken parts purchased at Costco, which provided the essential ingredients for many of Warren's lavishly presented meals, was a wise and painless way to economize. The fifty-mile round trip drive to the northern part of Marin County was a relatively small sacrifice. Warren just
