Chris Lim gazed across the water, perched at the hull of a small speedboat hurtling over choppy waves towards the only private island in the San Francisco bay. The stony cliffs of Red Rock Island loomed in the distance, encircled by seagulls, the noise of traffic on the nearby Richmond-San Rafael Bridge droning overhead. As we reached the shore, Lim, the former president of Christie’s International Real Estate, jumped from the boat, adeptly hurdling over the waves and landing on dry sand.
“The deepest part of the bay is right there – it’s actually perfect for a yacht,” Lim said as he crunched along the rocky beach in a blue vest and Gucci glasses. A future owner, he surmised, “could also come on a helicopter”. While “private island” may bring to mind a tropical beach with gleaming white sand, Red Rock Island is something else.
The 5.8-acre property is a hunk of red rock, complete with a narrow strip of stony beach and a thriving bird population. When the island hit the market last year, asking price $25m, the news made national headlines.
Lim is the longtime Christie’s realtor now tasked with trying to make this guano-encrusted outcropping appealing to potential billionaire buyers. When Lim launched the sale last November, he positioned it as a “prestigious trophy investment” and a “mysterious and sought-after gem”. When the Guardian toured the island in June, it had still not sold.
Red Rock is something of an outlier in the private island market. .
