Sutro and the Tides

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This is the Memory Palace. I'm Nate DeMayo.

The tide would come in and everything would turn beautiful.

Adolph Sutra would come to the land's end, down the sandstone cliffs to the beach, Point Lobos in San Francisco, to the rocks crusted with bleached barnacles, blue-black mussels cracked and gull pecked or agape mid-gasp in the open air, the shriveled anemones dormant and dulled, dead seeming.

grayish-green huddled together, clinging like the pale pink sea stars, untwinkling there in the sun.

But then the tide would roll in.

Water would rush in and pour and pool, and the rocks would hold the sea and its wonders for a while.

And Adolf Sutra would walk, stepping from still-dry rock to still-dry rock, careful not to slip, cut his palm, or soak the cuffs of his woolen dress pants or the leather soles of his leather shoes.

And he'd look down at the small fish, deposited there to swim about for a bit, the scuttling hermit crabs, see the anemones bloom again to vibrant life.

Stretch out their tiny wisping tentacles.

Watch their color return. Bright greens and pinks.
Scarlet spined urchins. Or purple or midnight blue in the morning light.
Starfish sparkling now. Silvery clouds too, reflected in the tide pools.

He was an immigrant, Adolph Sutro, a German and a Jew, came to California right after the gold rush, sold cigars in San Francisco and then in Nevada, when the prospectors who'd rushed westward rushed a bit backward for the silver that had been found there.

He made his first fortune and made his name when he figured out a way to dig tunnels that could draw waters that filled mines outside. Made them safer, made them more profitable.

But what made his name endure, in the small way that it does, if only in San Francisco, if only in stories like these, was when he figured out how to bring water inside.

Sutra left Nevada, put his money into land in San Francisco, which is never a bad investment, eventually mayor and, it seems, a lover of tide pools.

And so he bought a mansion in a fire sale, rebuilt it into a grand resort above those pools at Point Lobos,

and at some point during the building up of that resort, a glorious Victorian, white turrets and gingerbread at the cliff's edge, while he was building up the business of it all, how to draw in tourists, give guests things to do, reasons to stick around the grounds and not seek other pleasures in other parts of the city to other men's profit.

Planning gardens and galleries, restaurants and a museum of curiosities, anthropological artifacts, taxidermied animals, natural wonders, his thoughts turned back to the tide pools.

Did the idea come in slowly? A drip-drip of thought and insight, bringing his creative brain back to life? Or did it all rush in at once? A wave of inspiration? I don't know.

But I know that the world's largest indoor swimming park opened in that inlet at the land's edge in March of 1896.

A massive structure with a stunning wall made of 100,000 square feet of glass panes, letting visitors look to the ocean just outside.

Out to the horizon, and up to the clouds, to the sun streaming through the arched glass ceiling, towering above.

There were gardens and galleries and restaurants, a museum of curiosities, natural wonders, all of that. What brought people by the thousands to the land's end to Sutro's baths was the water.

Seven swimming pools, six salt water, one fresh, each just huge, each 500 feet long, 250 feet wide, laid out side by side, pointing out to sea, ringed by wooden walkways, extending out from bleachers and private changing rooms, snack bars, everything, but the pools, each with a slide, diving boards, ropes, and rings, and things we're used to now, but then, no, there had never been a place like that, where so many could run and jump and dive and soak and splash.

Year-round, some of the pools were heated and warm and wonderful all winter. Stay in for hours.
Let your work day slip away. The worries of the week.
Let Sutro's baths bring you back to life.

The boiler that would heat the water was also used to heat the towels that were waiting for you when you got out.

Wrap yourself up, dangle your feet over the edge of the pool or lean back in the bleachers, watching everybody have the time of their life.

Watch the way the sunlight through the glass ceiling played on the surface of the pools, the way its reflection danced on your girlfriend's face, how her wet hair shone.

As the day's light would change the color of that wall of windows at the edge of the ocean.

Orange sunsets, silver rainstorms, rosy dusk turning dark, and then electric lights blinking on when you still weren't used to electric lights blinking on. Seven swimming pools fed by the tides.

Adolph Sutro had figured it out.

Made tunnels and channels, spillways.

At high tide, the ocean would supply all the water he'd need.

Fill the whole place up in under an hour. It was like that every day.

Invite the ocean in, invite the people in,

and it would be beautiful.

For a while.

The baths aren't there anymore. There was a fire at the resort.
A couple, actually.

But it was mostly business. It was an expensive place to run.
And tastes changed. Other entertainments caught people's attention.
Different diversions brought them to life instead.

The place started to fall apart. The upkeep wasn't kept up.
Turned one of the pools into an ice rink. And that was fun,

but wasn't enough. The place shut down

and then burned down in 1966.

The tide comes in.

The tide goes out.

This episode of The Memory Palace was written and produced by me, Nate DeMayo, in November of 2024.

This show is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network of independently owned and operated listener-supported podcasts from PRX, a not-for-profit public media company.

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Go to radiotopia.fm slash donate today.

This here in November of 2024 is a remarkably busy and maybe consequential time in the 16-year history of this program. 16 years I've been doing this.

I have a book coming out on November 19th. I think I've wanted to have a book coming out for pretty much all of those 16 years.

A collection of stories from the show and more. If you're listening to this episode after that date, after November 19th, 2024, then it is already in stores.
It is already out in the world.

I'm fairly nervous, so I'm a little bit jealous of you right now because you know whether this book is doing anything.

It collects beloved stories from the podcast. It has new exclusive stories.

And there's a series of memoir stories that are like nothing I've ever done before that someone told me recently kind of unlocked the whole Memory palace project for them, which

I think was kind of the goal. And this book is lovely.
It has photos and illustrations and a cover I couldn't be more proud of.

I'm very curious to see what happens when it gets out into the world, but on some level, whether anything happens, you know, if this book has a chance to take off, in truth, that will probably hinge on listeners like you.

This book, like this show, doesn't quite fit into the marketplace.

It is just its own thing. It is a bit between genres.
It is a bit difficult to describe. And the marketplace doesn't respond well to things like that.

It's kind of hard to sell this book. It's been hard to get reviewers to review it.
It's been hard to get people to pay attention. I think readers will like it.

But first they have to find it. And that might just require your help.

So that starts with buying a book, most importantly, because sales drive sales. But it is also going to require word of mouth.
So if you like this book, tell somebody about this book.

Friend to friend, book club to book club. If you own an indie bookstore, if you have a podcast or a book blog or a TikTok account,

help me spread the word.

And if there's some way that I can help you do that, you know, appear on that podcast or do an interview for your blog or whatever it is, drop me a line and let me know at nate at theememorypalace.us.

Help this book find an audience. that might not be able to find it on its own.
If you want to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I am am there at The Memory Palace.

I am also on Instagram and threads at Thememory Palace podcast. I am on Blue Sky even, because like this whole thing is nuts.
And weirdly, I think I might like it there.

I am at Nate DeMayo there. And I am on Substack with a newsletter at thememorypalace podcast.substack.com.

And that's a mouthful. And I'm sorry for all the messaging, but I got books to sell.
I got a podcast to do. I have a network to help during its fundraiser right now at radiotopia.fm slash donate.

But luckily, I have you guys out there listening, so I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
There are more stories on the way.

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