The Excelsior Stairs climb from Bridgeway across from Viña del Mar Park. Today they are 52 gray cement steps. On October 5, the City Council voted to accept a donated mural for the risers between those steps, and by spring the stairway is supposed to show two women holding a globe of the Western Hemisphere.
That decision got less attention than the two dates most of town has already marked. Sausalito closes Caledonia Street twice this October, first for A Toast to Sausalito and then for Halloween. Each event lasts one day. The stairway mural will last for years, and it still has to be paid for before anyone starts painting. Caledonia gets the crowds this October, but the change on Bridgeway is the one that will still be there next year.
Two Saturdays, One Street
A Toast to Sausalito takes over Caledonia Street on Saturday, October 17, from 1 to 5 p.m., between Pine and Bee. The city's Parks and Recreation Department and the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce present it together. Entry is free. Beverage-tasting wristbands cost extra, and the city's event page caps them at 1,000.
The city describes the festival as a tribute to "the old Caledonia St. fair and Taste of Sausalito Events of years past." That history explains the location. The Toast was built to bring a street fair back to a street that used to hold one, so it isn't simply using Caledonia because the street is convenient.
Two weeks later, the same street fills up again for Halloween Sausalito on Saturday, October 31. The city's Halloween page lists a 6 p.m. parade, trick-or-treating, a pumpkin contest, and a dog-costume contest sponsored by Soulmates. Parks and Recreation, the Caledonia Street Merchants and local community groups are the named sponsors.
The two events treat dogs very differently. At the Toast, the city asks people to leave dogs at home because of crowds, glass and food booths. On Halloween, dogs get their own contest.
The closure schedule, by date
If you live near Caledonia or drive it often, these are the windows posted by the city:
- Friday, October 16, 11 a.m. Locust closes to through traffic between Caledonia and Bonita for stage construction. It stays closed until 8 p.m. Saturday.
- Saturday, October 17, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Caledonia closes from Johnson to Bee. Litho, Turney and Pine close to through traffic from Bridgeway to Bonita.
- Saturday, October 31, 4:30 to 9 p.m. Caledonia closes from Bridgeway and Johnson to Bee, and the section from Bee to Locust is also closed until 9 p.m.
The Toast closure is the longer one. It runs 14 hours on Saturday, plus the Locust setup that starts the day before, all for a four-hour festival. The Halloween closure lasts four and a half hours.
For the Toast, the city recommends walking, biking, carpooling or taking the ferry. The ferry lands about half a mile from the entrance at Caledonia and Johnson, and a free shuttle runs between the Ferry Plaza and the festival. Bike racks will be set up next to the wristband booth at Johnson and Caledonia, but bikes aren't allowed inside the festival. Lot #5 is reserved for vendor parking from 10 a.m. to noon and then reopens to the public. The city also asks visitors not to park in residential neighborhoods. Sausalito residents 60 and older can book a free ride through CARSS volunteers.
The Bridgeway Change That Outlasts Both Weekends
While Caledonia prepares for its two Saturdays, the most lasting change to downtown is happening a block away on Bridgeway. The Marin Independent Journal reported that the Excelsior Stairs project could give Sausalito its first new public art in more than 30 years.
Sausalito Sister Cities, a nonprofit, is sponsoring the mural. Sausalito artist Raylene Gorum will paint it. Gorum also designed "All Our Children United," the mural on the Highway 101 underpass between Sausalito and Marin City.
The design rises step by step. At the bottom is Gabriela Mistral, the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean writer, above a dress whose pleats are rows of grapevines. At the top, beneath an arbor full of flowers, a Sausalito woman holds the globe. Wine-region imagery runs through the middle. The subject ties back to the park at the foot of the stairs. Viña del Mar, Chile, became Sausalito's first sister city in 1960. Sakaide, Japan, followed in 1988, and Cascais, Portugal, in 2013.
According to the Marin IJ's account of the council meeting, Mayor Steven Woodside expects the mural to lead to more projects:
"This is going to spark more projects in town and this is a spectacular start to that."
The same Marin IJ report quotes Vice Mayor Melissa Blaustein calling the project "just a triumph." In public comment, Caroline Revell said that Sausalito Beautiful and the Downtown Sausalito Association both endorse the mural because "it will add color and vitality."
Why the Stairs Run on a Slower Clock
The mural is also the first artwork approved under a new process. Earlier this year, the City Council adopted a five-step review in which the Parks and Recreation Commission vets public-art applications and recommends which ones the council should accept. In the Marin IJ report, commission chair Stacy Kray said it was "tremendously gratifying" that the first approval under the new policy moved so quickly.
Paying for the mural is taking longer than approving it. The art is donated, so the city isn't paying for it, and the stairway project has a $100,000 budget raised through tax-deductible donations. Sausalito Sister Cities board member Robert Miros told the Marin IJ that, as of the October 12 report, the project had received a $5,200 grant from the county and a $10,000 donation. That adds up to $15,200, a little over 15 percent of the budget.
The group plans to raise the rest by "selling steps." Miros described tiers in which donors at certain levels would be recognized on a specific step, and he said "details are still coming together." The goal is to paint the stairs by next spring. That is a fundraising target, not a construction date, so it may change.
So October has two kinds of downtown project. The Toast and Halloween are organized by the city and merchants, scheduled to the hour, and gone by evening. The stairway is a donor project with an approved design, a fundraising gap and a target season.
Beyond Caledonia, the Calendar Runs Through December
Outside the two Caledonia Saturdays, the fall calendar is spread around town, from 750 Bridgeway to the waterfront at Gabrielson Park:
- October 22, 6 to 8 p.m. The Sausalito Center for the Arts at 750 Bridgeway hosts "Ukraine: Beyond the Headlines," featuring Sausalito residents Ron Albert and Mike Cerre.
- October 30 through December 6. The juried "SCA Open 2026" exhibition runs at the same address, with an opening reception on Sunday, November 1, from 3 to 6 p.m.
- November 26 and December 25. Golden Gate Ferry has no service on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day. On Friday, November 27, it runs a weekend schedule. Otherwise, the Sausalito–San Francisco schedule that took effect April 13, 2026, is still the posted timetable.
- December 12, 6 to 7:15 p.m. Winterfest Sausalito holds the Lighted Boat Parade along the waterfront at Gabrielson Park, with fireworks around 7:15 p.m. The Captain's After Party follows at The Spinnaker, 100 Spinnaker Drive.
- December 13. The Jingle Bell 5K and related Winterfest events take place the day after the parade.
- December 16 through 22. The Center for the Arts holds its first Artist Member Exhibition, "These are a Few of Our Favorite Things."
Dunphy Park is also finished. On September 18, 2026, the city announced that the community had celebrated the completion of the park's improvements. If you haven't been to the shoreline there since the work started, this fall is your first chance to see it done.
Nick Svenson at Livein415 follows downtown projects like the Excelsior Stairs because the slow changes, the ones that need a council vote and a donor list, are the ones that show up in a neighborhood's character later. If you have questions about what's changing near your street or your block of Bridgeway, schedule a 15-minute consultation and we'll go over it together.
