Stefano Mori and his family bought the point in 1888 and farmed and ranched there. The kitchen built to feed employees grew into the Mori Point Inn, a well-known Prohibition speakeasy that closed in 1965 and burned in 1966. In 1923 federal agents seized 24,000 cases of whiskey from Jack Mori’s farm.
After a 1984 plan for 60 homes and a 275-room hotel drew a lawsuit, conservation groups bought the land at auction in 2000 for $3.3 million and donated it to the federal government in 2002. Ponds dug in 2005 now shelter the California red-legged frog and the San Francisco garter snake, and the Bootlegger’s Steps climb the bluff. The last scene of the 1971 film Harold and Maude was shot here.