Long before “The Godfather” became one of the most celebrated films in American cinema, Francis Ford Coppola was working out its opening scenes in a small cottage in Mill Valley.
Now that property, at 8 Laurel St. on a prominent corner at Throckmorton Avenue near downtown Mill Valley, is on the market for $6.75 million.
In a 2016 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Coppola said he was “working on the screenplay in a little cottage, one-room cottage, in Mill Valley” when he reconsidered the film’s opening. He had first begun with the wedding sequence, then rewrote it into the now-famous scene that slowly reveals Bonasera pleading his case before Don Corleone in the darkness.
Coppola also worked on the 1972 film in other Bay Area settings, including San Francisco’s Caffe Trieste in North Beach, which has long been associated with the screenplay’s development.
But Mill Valley appears to have been where one of the film’s biggest creative breakthroughs took shape.
“I knew nothing about five crime families, which had recently become exposed to the public with the publication of ‘The Valachi Papers,’” Coopploa told Gross. “But neither did Mario Puzo, who was also Italian American. But he knew nothing about it, and he wanted to write this book sort of to get some money for his family. He thought it could be commercial.”
During the 45th Academy Awards, “The Godfather” won the Oscar for best picture and adapted screenplay, which Coppola shared with Puzo. Marlon Brando, who played Vito Corleone, won best actor but infamously rejected the Oscar.
In the years that followed, Coppola built a far larger footprint in Northern California and beyond. The Coppola family acquired part of the historic Inglenook estate in Napa Valley, expanded into Sonoma with Francis Ford Coppola Winery, and developed a collection of hospitality properties under the Coppola Hideaways name.
The same Mill Valley property also played a role in another landmark film of the era. George and Marcia Lucas edited “American Graffiti” in the carriage house above the garage, according to the property listing.
The home, which the listing says was built in 1907, includes the main house, Coppola’s former detached writing cottage and a carriage house apartment above the garage.
The property was listed Friday, March 13, and is scheduled to take offers Thursday, March 19, according to the seller’s representatives.
Its current owners, Jane and Joel Rosenberg, are described by Compass listing agent Carey Condy as longtime creative entrepreneurs with a strong sense of design.
“From the successful product development of Mashuga Nuts, to launching an early kombucha brand, to Jane’s elegant pearl jewelry designs, the couple built a life shaped by curiosity, creativity, and impeccable taste,” Condy said in a statement.
The listing also says former Jefferson Starship bassist Pete Sears once lived there.