Bolinas Museum last week secured a permanent niche downtown when the museum's board of directors decided to purchase its two-building complex on Wharf Road.

The complex houses the museum and a handful of small businesses.

"This is a real big step for us," said Bolinas Museum Director Dolores Richards. "Now this institution has a footprint in town."

The two whitewashed Victorian structures, known by the Postal Service as 48 and 50 Wharf Rd., were sold to the museum for $695,000 by owner Ewan Macdonald of Bolinas.

"He's been a longtime supporter of the museum," Richards said. "We're all so relieved and happy. Everyone in town was afraid that someone from outside [West Marin] would buy the building, build little stores, and turn the whole place into a little Sausalito."

"It was hard to sell the buildings because I put a lot into them, but knowing that the Bolinas Museum will get them takes away some of the sting," Macdonald told The Light Monday.

Currently, the two-building complex houses the museum's gallery, history room, "Living Artists Project" room, art and history collections, and an office.

Also on the property are: a video store, hairdressing salon, private art studio, two offices, and a women's craft collective.

"Originally, we think, the buildings were constructed near each other [along Wharf Road] sometime in the 1890s. They weren't placed side-by-side though until after the 1906 earthquake," Richards said.

Since then, she added, "everything's been here - Hoirup's butcher shop and market, the postoffice, the library, and Scowley's restaurant."

But it was better known as "the center of Jugville," according to longtime resident and newspaper cartoonist Phil Frank.

After the buildings underwent a historic renovation in 1989, the Bolinas Museum moved in from its former location near the laundromat.

"There's strong local support for this museum," Richards said. Two board members put up $25,000 "seed money" for the buildings' downpayment, and within 24 hours "we raised $75,000 from residents who happened to hear of the sale."

To raise remaining funds for the purchase, the museum will launch a capital-fundraising campaign in mid-summer.