Name: A Bay Area man built an extravagant pirate cove, right in his backyard
Brand: sfgate.com
SKU: sfgate-com-167
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

A Bay Area man built an extravagant pirate cove, right in his backyard

preview

Rich Firato didn’t intend to build a Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired oasis in his backyard, complete with a lagoon, treasure and a Spanish galleon — but when inspiration struck, he had no choice but to go with it.His family moved into their Morgan Hill home in 2000. They intended to rip out the overgrown backyard, until one of the workers, a man named Fisherman Doug who looked like a character right out of Disney, changed Firato’s mind.“The guy had long hair, ponytails, a teeth necklace,” Firato says. “He looked like Daniel Boone. He walked around the outside of the yard, and he says, ‘I have this idea for your property.’” Fisherman Doug brought Firato to his own house to show him what he had in mind. “It looked like Tom Sawyer Island from Disneyland. Everything was made out of wood, branches, tree trunks, little houses. And he just showed me his idea, scene by scene.”Now, has its own website, showcasing the intricate decorations, the working water features, the skeleton pirates all around. There's even a video about how that galleon traveled from British Columbia — by land, it’s only a replica ship — to be installed in the Bay Area. It regularly hosts events, all for free, because his neighborhood isn’t zoned for business, which has gotten Firato the moniker, “The Benevolent Pirate.” Morgan's Cove is open by appointment for gratis private tours. He’s even hosted a few weddings there, like his son’s.You can see a walkthrough of this swashbuckling yard here:Fisherman Doug described his vision by saying, “we’re going to build an island as if we were stranded here,” Firato recalls. He then went on a hunt for 300-foot-tall eucalyptus trees for raw materials, and went to the delta to cut bamboo out of the river. “I said ‘why don’t we go to Home Depot?’" Firato says. “He said, ‘the only reason we’re going to go to Home Depot is to buy structural materials. We’re going to build as if we’re stranded.’”Three years into building Morgan’s Cove, the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie debuted. That was a game changer. Instead of being marooned on an island, visitors were now going to feel as though they were in the movie itself. “We had this island, but we had no idea about pirates until we saw the movie. We saw the ships, the rigging, the towns, the atmosphere,” Firato says. “So we decided, ‘how do we incorporate that, but not make it look like Disneyland, yet have the feel of Disneyland.’”Disneyland purists would disagree, but there’s an argument to be made that Morgan’s Cove is actually better than the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in New Orleans Square. On that ride, you take a boat past the action. In Morgan’s Cove, you can be right inside it, sitting among treasure inside the Ship Yard or sidling up to the Cabana Cove tiki bar.“Fisherman Doug brought me another guy named Hawaiian Brian, and he knew how to do rigging,” Firato says. The cast of characters grew like a pirate crew itself. Along the way, they taught themselves how to do things like make a half-size replica Spanish galleon not only stable on land, but look like an organic part of the scene. “We built an entire island around the ship,” he says. “The boat is just sunk in the sand, full of treasure.”With a project 20 years in the making, though, eventually he ran out of new things to build. Now, it’s more about meticulous maintenance of the existing structures, and replacing them when they’ve reached the end of their useable lives. And it’s also about entering the fantasy world in a different way.Without major projects to keep him busy, Firato was at loose ends, but always thinking about being inside Morgan’s Cove. That’s when he started writing, is his novel, which takes place inside the world he’s created in his backyard. “When I’m exploring or when I’m working or looking around, I’m in a different world,” Firato says. “Wherever you look around, what you see, you’re in it. That’s how I create my stories — I just look around and see things and I just create it here. Then once I create it, I write about it. I wrote every chapter as if I lived it.”Morgan’s Cove was quiet through quarantine, but has slowly started hosting people again. Recently, it was a 45-person fundraiser for the , done under the governor’s guidance at the time for outdoor gatherings. “That was real challenging doing that, doing all the protocols and keeping a safe distance,” he says. “We have the room to do that, but I was a little nervous.”The ability to transport himself (and other people) elsewhere is invaluable right now, in a time when our stress is at an all-time high and our ability to travel is limited. “I have a tour coming in today, and for the hour they’re here, I’m just going to take them to a different place and let their minds take them wherever they go,” Firato says. “I just set the stage. They go, and each one has a different experience. That’s what’s really amazing. I’m just thankful I get to do it.”

Rich Firato didn’t intend to build a Pirates of the Caribbean-inspired oasis in his backyard, complete with a lagoon, treasure and a Spanish galleon — but when inspiration struck, he had no choice but to go with it.His family moved into their Morgan Hill home in 2000. They intended to rip out the overgrown backyard, until one of the workers, a man named Fisherman Doug who looked like a character right out of Disney, changed Firato’s mind.“The guy had long hair, ponytails, a teeth necklace,” Firato says. “He looked like Daniel Boone. He walked around the outside of the yard, and he says, ‘I...

public

Travel & food writer. Disneyland Editor for @sfgate. Pitch me: julie (dot) tremaine (at) http://sfgate.com @SATW & @ASJAhq member | Repped by Chalberg & Sussman

Julie Tremaine

News. Culture. Sports. Opinion. All the journalism that matters from San Francisco & the Bay Area. Newsletters: http://sfgate.com/newsletters IG: http://instagram.com/sfgate

A Bay Area man built an extravagant pirate cove, right in his backyard

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS