What do you get when two 22-year-olds with almost no money decide that the canals of Southern California need gondolas? In the case of David F. Black and his friend Mike O'Toole, you get a leaky Pakistani fishing boat, an old lifeguard dory, plenty of people convinced the idea will never work, and eventually one of the most unusual Italian-inspired businesses in America. More than four decades later, gondolas are still gliding through the canals of Naples Island in Long Beach, California.
David has turned the adventures surrounding those early years into The American Gondolier, a novel inspired by the true story of how two young Californians created a little bit of Venice on the other side of the world. David joined me on the Flavor of Italy podcast to talk about those years, the unlikely beginnings of the business, the trip to Venice that changed everything, and why he finally decided to turn the story into a book.
Before the American Gondolier, There Were Gondolas in Naples Island
Here's one of the details that surprised me most. David and Mike didn't simply wake up one morning and decide that Southern California needed a touch of Venice. Gondolas had already been part of the history of Naples Island. At the beginning of the 20th century, developer Arthur Parsons was creating a canal community near Long Beach. Venice Beach already had the obvious Italian name, so this new development became Naples. Gondolas imported from Italy, complete with gondoliers, were used to entice potential buyers. People arrived from Los Angeles on the Red Car, climbed into a gondola and were rowed along the canals to look at lots for sale.
Decades later, the gondolas had disappeared, but the canals remained. In 1982, David and Mike decided to bring them back, although there was one fairly significant problem with their plan: they didn't actually have a gondola. Their solution to that problem tells you quite a bit about the combination of optimism, ingenuity and youthful nerve that runs through David's story.
Starting a Gondola Business Without a Gondola
Their first boat was about as far from a sleek Venetian gondola as you can imagine. It was an old Pakistani fishing boat sitting in front of a house on one of the canals, where it was being used as a garden planter. Mike approached the owner and asked if they could have it. They patched it up, installed bilge pumps to keep it dry and tried powering it with enormous batteries and a trolling motor. Their second "gondola" wasn't much closer to the Venetian ideal. It was an old lifeguard dory they borrowed from a friend and, as David cheerfully admitted during our conversation, never returned. With help from his stepfather, they extended the bow and stern to make it look something like a gondola.
People thought the whole idea was crazy, and David remembers adults driving by and asking, with an amused smile, how the gondola business was going. Rather than discouraging him, the skepticism energized him. They needed that determination because attracting customers wasn't easy. They called television stations and news outlets without much success, made sandwich boards, carried a boombox playing Italian music and walked around busy areas handing out flyers. They tried just about anything they could think of to persuade people to come to Naples Island and take a gondola ride.
The Sunset Magazine Cover That Changed Everything
Their breakthrough came in 1984, when an editor from Sunset Magazine came to photograph the gondolas himself after the magazine had been unable to get a photograph it liked. His photograph didn't end up as a small illustration buried inside the magazine. Instead, it became the cover of the July 1984 issue, and the timing couldn't have been better. Los Angeles was preparing for the Summer Olympics, and the issue featured things to do in and around the city. There on the cover was David and Mike's gondola.
The effect was immediate. People in the Los Angeles media who hadn't returned their calls were suddenly calling them, and what had looked like an eccentric little venture became a story everyone wanted to tell. David remembers that they went from handling the occasional telephone inquiry themselves to needing two people answering calls throughout the day, a level of attention that continued for years. Today, Gondola Getaway continues to take passengers through the canals of Naples Island, more than four decades after two young men began experimenting with that Pakistani fishing boat.
When the American Gondolier Went to Venice
There was still an important piece missing. If David and Mike were going to run a gondola business, they needed to understand how a real gondola was rowed, so in 1984 they traveled to Venice on what David describes as a fact-finding trip. It was his first visit, and he remembers stepping into Venice and feeling as though he'd walked into a storybook. More importantly for the future of the business, he and Mike met Venetian gondoliers who were willing to teach them about traditional rowing.
Back in California, they abandoned the cumbersome electric motors and adapted their boats so they could row them. The relationship with Venice soon became much deeper. In 1985, they were invited back to participate in the Vogalonga, the extraordinary rowing event that travels through Venice and its lagoon. After that first experience, David and Mike made Venice part of the culture of their company, bringing teams of their American gondoliers to participate in the Vogalonga and experience Venetian rowing traditions firsthand.
The Vogalonga and a Different Way to Experience Venice
Although David occasionally calls the Vogalonga a race during our conversation, he quickly corrects himself because that's not really its spirit. The event is a celebration of rowing and human-powered boats, created in response to the proliferation of motorboats in Venice and the damage their wakes cause along the city's canals. Around 1,000 boats of all kinds participate, and David describes rowing alongside everything from serious competitors to families who bring their children, food and wine and turn the event into a day-long outing.
That first year, however, David and his fellow Californians did row competitively. They participated in a caorlina, one of the traditional Venetian rowing boats, and finished first among roughly 60 boats in their class. In later years, the competitive aspect mattered less than participating in the celebration and bringing American gondoliers to Venice so they could understand the tradition behind what they were doing back home. David estimates that he returned for the Vogalonga 16 or 17 times while he was involved with the company.
This is one of the parts of David's story that I find particularly fascinating. What began as two California kids borrowing boats and improvising eventually led them directly to the centuries-old culture they were trying to recreate. Instead of simply borrowing the image of Venice, they developed a relationship with the real place and its rowing traditions.
Gondolas Led to an Italian Restaurant
Once the gondola business took off, another idea followed. Customers would finish their cruises and ask David and Mike where they should go for dinner, and the two young entrepreneurs were constantly recommending local restaurants. Eventually David wondered why they didn't simply open one themselves. He had worked in restaurants since he was young, beginning as a dishwasher, and his mother agreed to lend them much of the money they needed to get started. The result was Ragazzi, an Italian restaurant that became a successful business in its own right.
David discovered, however, that owning a restaurant looks considerably more romantic from the dining room than it does from behind the scenes. A gondola ride begins with customers who already want to be enchanted, and the setting does much of the work. A restaurant is different. Every detail matters, from how quickly guests are greeted to whether you can fill the dining room throughout the week rather than simply on Saturday night. Ragazzi operated for many years before the building it occupied was eventually condemned in connection with the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool complex. David came away from the experience with a lesson he shares rather emphatically in our conversation: whenever possible, build a business around property you own rather than a lease that can ultimately be taken out of your hands.
From a True Story to The American Gondolier
David eventually sold his share of Gondola Getaway to Mike in 2010, but the business never really disappeared from his life. He still sees the gondolas moving through the canals, and one of the things he particularly enjoys is watching a new generation become part of the story. Sons and daughters of some of the early gondoliers have become gondoliers themselves, carrying on something their parents were doing decades ago.
It was David's son who eventually pushed him to write the stories down. David had accumulated decades of memories about the early years: the borrowed boats, the lack of money, the improvised docks, the customers, the trips to Venice and the sometimes improbable things that happen when you're in your twenties and determined to make an idea work. His son kept hearing these stories and finally told him to write the book. David began by constructing a timeline from 1982 onward and adding the stories he remembered from different periods of his life.
The American Gondolier isn't a straightforward memoir. David began with real people, a real business and many real adventures, then allowed the story to move into fiction. During our conversation, he points out some of those boundaries. The beginnings of the gondola business are rooted in his life, as is Ragazzi, while later adventures take the characters into fictional territory. What began as one book has now developed into a larger story, with David working on additional books that carry some of the characters into entirely new adventures.
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An Italian Tradition Finds an American Home
There's something wonderfully circular about David's story. More than a century ago, Italian gondolas and gondoliers were brought to Southern California to help sell a new canal community called Naples. They disappeared, but the waterways and the memory of that earlier Italian connection remained. Decades later, two young Californians rediscovered the idea, initially knowing almost nothing about how a real gondola worked, and turned it into a business that has now lasted for more than 40 years.
What might easily have remained an Italian-themed attraction instead developed a genuine relationship with Venetian rowing culture. David and Mike learned from Venetian gondoliers, participated in the Vogalonga and brought what they learned home. They also helped introduce a generation of American gondoliers to Venice, some of whom eventually went on to establish gondola businesses elsewhere in the United States. David mentions former gondoliers starting operations in San Diego and near Morro Bay, along with other gondola businesses that appeared around the country.
Where to Ride a Gondola in the United States
One of the things I discovered while preparing for my conversation with David is that you don't necessarily have to travel to Venice to step into a gondola. Water gondola businesses are scattered around the United States, and they're surprisingly varied. Some emphasize handcrafted boats, Venetian-style rowing and a strong connection to the original tradition, while others have adapted the concept with electric gondolas, dinners, celebrations and larger vessels. Here are a few places where you can experience an American interpretation of a gondola ride.
Long Beach, California - Gondola Getaway
Naturally, David and Mike's original business is the place to begin. Gondola Getaway has been taking passengers through the canals of Naples Island since 1982, and the company continues the relationship with Venice that David describes in our conversation. Today's choices range from intimate cruises to larger group experiences, making this both the starting point of David's American gondolier story and a business that has continued to evolve with the times.
Providence, Rhode Island - La Gondola
Providence offers one of the more intriguing American connections to authentic Venetian gondola culture. La Gondola operates on the Providence and Woonasquatucket Rivers, and its fleet includes boats with genuine Venetian pedigrees. It's an interesting example of a thoroughly American urban setting becoming the backdrop for a tradition that still maintains strong links to its Venetian origins.
Morro Bay, California - Central Coast Gondola
Morro Bay places the gondola in an entirely different landscape, with cruises that combine the shape and romance of the Venetian boat with California's Central Coast. It's especially relevant to David's story because he mentions during our conversation that former gondoliers went on to establish their own businesses, including one near Morro Bay. The company offers private cruises along with special experiences such as celebrations and wine tastings.
Irving, Texas - Gondola Adventures
The Mandalay Canals and Lake Carolyn in Las Colinas provide the setting for a very different kind of American gondola experience. Gondola Adventures offers both rowing and electric gondolas, along with options that include meals and special occasions. It's a particularly good example of how the gondola has been modernized in the United States without losing the basic appeal of being out on the water in a private, leisurely boat.
Coronado, California - The Gondola Company
Near San Diego, The Gondola Company operates private cruises through the canals and waterways of Coronado Cays on San Diego Bay. Here again, the American landscape happens to lend itself beautifully to an idea borrowed from Venice, and the experience centers on intimate cruises through calm residential waterways rather than trying to reproduce Venice itself.
Stillwater, Minnesota - Gondola Romantica
Minnesota probably isn't the first place that comes to mind when you think of gondolas, which is exactly what makes this one so interesting. Gondola Romantica brings the experience to the St. Croix River in historic Stillwater, pairing a Venetian-inspired boat with a distinctly Midwestern river landscape. It demonstrates just how adaptable the gondola experience has become once removed from the canals of Venice.
Taken together, these businesses show that the American gondola hasn't remained frozen as a copy of its Venetian ancestor. Some operators emphasize authentic boats and traditional rowing, while others have added electric propulsion, meals, wine, larger boats and experiences designed around the waterways where they operate. Yet the essential attraction hasn't changed very much. You step into a graceful boat, leave the shore behind and experience a familiar place from the water at a much slower pace.
Listen to My Conversation with David F. Black
In this week's Flavor of Italy podcast, David and I talk about the real adventures behind The American Gondolier, those first decidedly un-Venetian boats, the breakthrough that put their gondola on the cover of Sunset Magazine, the trip to Venice, rowing the Vogalonga, opening Ragazzi and the point where David's true story begins to turn into fiction. We also talk about why his son finally convinced him to write down the stories he'd been telling for years and where the books are taking him next.
Perhaps my favorite part of the entire story is that 44 years after David and Mike began experimenting with a Pakistani fishing boat and an old lifeguard dory, gondolas are still moving through the canals of Naples Island. What sounded like a crazy idea in 1982 became a lasting business, a connection between California and Venice, and eventually the story behind The American Gondolier.
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If you ever want some clarification of how the business was actually conceived and how i have brought it to where it is today, free to contact me any time. Michael OToole. gondolier33@verizon.net
Thanks!