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Oasis for Resisting Status Symbols Just Might Get One
Historic Status Weighed for Druid Heights, a Countercultural Oasis
MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — What do you get when you bring together a groundbreaking lesbian poet, a famous Zen philosopher, the founder of a prostitutes’ union and the inventor of the self-regulating filtered hot tub?
The answer: Druid Heights — a once-thriving Bay Area bohemia deep in the forest, now moldering despite the best efforts of its residents, a few hardy holdovers from the counterculture, to maintain it.
Secreted away one and a half miles down a dirt road, Druid Heights is unknown to thousands of tourists who flock to the misty redwoods of Muir Woods, even as it comes under review by the National Park Service for recognition as a historic or culturally significant site. The philosopher Alan Watts, who died here in 1973 in the Mandala House, a circular work of architecture resembling a spinning top, wrote of this community’s “numinous, mythological quality,” which drew artists, writers, musicians and hedonists from 1954 through the early ’70s.
Among them were the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder; Margo St. James, who organized the union for prostitutes; Catharine A. MacKinnon, the feminist law professor who advises the International Criminal Court in The Hague on gender issues; and the lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow, whose ashes reside near the Moon Temple. Her guest room and meditation cabin still exude an otherworldly goddess aura.
A window in Ed Stiles's home was inspired by the hot tubs he designed.
JIM WILSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES
In the 1970s, the Park Service bought the land the community sits on to protect endangered species and the watershed of Muir Woods. It gave the three former owners who remained, all of them still alive, the legal right to remain in Druid Heights until their deaths. But the fate of the place is uncertain, with the Park Service now determining whether Druid Heights, its once-renegade hot tub an evocative ruin, is culturally noteworthy enough to qualify for the National Register of Historic Places.
In his 1962 book, “The Joyous Cosmology,” Mr. Watts, the English-born popularizer of Eastern religion and philosophy, described sitting amid fuchsia and hummingbirds with fellow residents, eating homemade bread and drinking white wine. Collectively, he suggested, they had escaped the strictures of modern society, “no longer the humdrum and harassed little personalities with names, addresses and social security numbers.”
Echo Heron, a best-selling author, lived on and off for years in a Japanese- and Polynesian-inspired dwelling with Trader Vic’s-style spear projections. “It was a happening every day at Druid Heights,” she recalled.
The famous flocked to the community’s foggy solitude, with cameo appearances by Dizzy Gillespie, John Handy, Neil Young, Lily Tomlin and Tom Robbins. Its mastermind, Roger Somers, a free-spirited builder and musician — an “incarnation of exuberant glee,” Mr. Watts wrote — found the five paradisiacal acres dense with eucalyptus and redwood trees. He and Ms. Gidlow bought the property, which she christened Druid Heights.
The National Park Service acquired Druid Heights, at Muir Woods, in the 1970s.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“This place was Roger,” said Ed Stiles, 73, a designer of custom furniture and hot tubs who has lived here 47 years with his wife, Marilyn, a sculptor. “He built these rat holes in the hills and started renting them. Everyone else was a day-tripper, a hanger-on or a bloodsucker.”
Mr. Somers, who died in his hot tub in 2001, forged a style “more stage set than building,” said Paul Scolari, a historian for the National Park Service. It was civil disobedience in architecture, with roofs built in a state of near collapse — stabilized that way for effect.
“Roger built nothing to code,” Ms. Heron said. “He was actually rather proud of that.”
The place, which exemplified voluntary simplicity and self-cultivation, was also “wildly social,” Mr. Stiles recalled. “One night I climbed into the tub, and there was this pleasant person in it. It was Judy Collins.”
The Park Service is required to assess the cultural and historical significance of properties under its care. Having the federal government for his landlord “is more ironic than you know,” said Mr. Stiles, whose rustic home includes a cuckoo clock, a stuffed vulture, a vintage sled from Vladivostok and a round wooden shower inspired by a French milkmaid’s bucket.
About half the hamlet’s 16 zany structures are subsumed by vines and runaway bamboo. But Mr. Watts’s library and Ms. Gidlow’s house and cabin, among other buildings, hang on.
Even if Druid Heights qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, preservation will be very difficult, warned Alexandra Picavet, a spokeswoman for the Park Service. She cited cost, liability and safety concerns, since Muir Woods draws 5,000 visitors a day in season. The area is also home to endangered species like the spotted owl, which at night sounds “like a radar beeping,” Mr. Stiles said.
Erik Davis, a historian who included Druid Heights in his 2006 book, “The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape,” said the community had historic value. “The era doesn’t lend itself to historic buildings, because it was so transient,” he observed. “There aren’t a lot of places where you can memorialize this countercultural moment, so it’s a chance for recognition.”
And the preservation constituency is building: The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy sponsored two walks to Druid Heights, led by a guide who had grown a goatee for the occasions.
Yet Ms. Gidlow, who drew legions of lesbian pilgrims, wanted Druid Heights to become a retreat for female writers and artists after her death. Professor MacKinnon, who lived here while teaching at Stanford, argued that the community should stay a cocoon for creativity.
“It was a spiritually sustaining place,” she said. “I think Elsa’s idea should be honored.”
Oasis for Resisting Status Symbols Just Might Get One
Historic Status Weighed for Druid Heights, a Countercultural Oasis
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A rustic structure, above, is typical of Druid Heights, a secluded Bay Area community.
JIM WILSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
JANUARY 25, 2012
MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Calif. — What do you get when you bring together a groundbreaking lesbian poet, a famous Zen philosopher, the founder of a prostitutes’ union and the inventor of the self-regulating filtered hot tub?
The answer: Druid Heights — a once-thriving Bay Area bohemia deep in the forest, now moldering despite the best efforts of its residents, a few hardy holdovers from the counterculture, to maintain it.
Secreted away one and a half miles down a dirt road, Druid Heights is unknown to thousands of tourists who flock to the misty redwoods of Muir Woods, even as it comes under review by the National Park Service for recognition as a historic or culturally significant site. The philosopher Alan Watts, who died here in 1973 in the Mandala House, a circular work of architecture resembling a spinning top, wrote of this community’s “numinous, mythological quality,” which drew artists, writers, musicians and hedonists from 1954 through the early ’70s.
Among them were the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder; Margo St. James, who organized the union for prostitutes; Catharine A. MacKinnon, the feminist law professor who advises the International Criminal Court in The Hague on gender issues; and the lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow, whose ashes reside near the Moon Temple. Her guest room and meditation cabin still exude an otherworldly goddess aura.
A window in Ed Stiles's home was inspired by the hot tubs he designed.
JIM WILSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES
In the 1970s, the Park Service bought the land the community sits on to protect endangered species and the watershed of Muir Woods. It gave the three former owners who remained, all of them still alive, the legal right to remain in Druid Heights until their deaths. But the fate of the place is uncertain, with the Park Service now determining whether Druid Heights, its once-renegade hot tub an evocative ruin, is culturally noteworthy enough to qualify for the National Register of Historic Places.
In his 1962 book, “The Joyous Cosmology,” Mr. Watts, the English-born popularizer of Eastern religion and philosophy, described sitting amid fuchsia and hummingbirds with fellow residents, eating homemade bread and drinking white wine. Collectively, he suggested, they had escaped the strictures of modern society, “no longer the humdrum and harassed little personalities with names, addresses and social security numbers.”
Echo Heron, a best-selling author, lived on and off for years in a Japanese- and Polynesian-inspired dwelling with Trader Vic’s-style spear projections. “It was a happening every day at Druid Heights,” she recalled.
The famous flocked to the community’s foggy solitude, with cameo appearances by Dizzy Gillespie, John Handy, Neil Young, Lily Tomlin and Tom Robbins. Its mastermind, Roger Somers, a free-spirited builder and musician — an “incarnation of exuberant glee,” Mr. Watts wrote — found the five paradisiacal acres dense with eucalyptus and redwood trees. He and Ms. Gidlow bought the property, which she christened Druid Heights.
The National Park Service acquired Druid Heights, at Muir Woods, in the 1970s.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“This place was Roger,” said Ed Stiles, 73, a designer of custom furniture and hot tubs who has lived here 47 years with his wife, Marilyn, a sculptor. “He built these rat holes in the hills and started renting them. Everyone else was a day-tripper, a hanger-on or a bloodsucker.”
Mr. Somers, who died in his hot tub in 2001, forged a style “more stage set than building,” said Paul Scolari, a historian for the National Park Service. It was civil disobedience in architecture, with roofs built in a state of near collapse — stabilized that way for effect.
“Roger built nothing to code,” Ms. Heron said. “He was actually rather proud of that.”
The place, which exemplified voluntary simplicity and self-cultivation, was also “wildly social,” Mr. Stiles recalled. “One night I climbed into the tub, and there was this pleasant person in it. It was Judy Collins.”
The Park Service is required to assess the cultural and historical significance of properties under its care. Having the federal government for his landlord “is more ironic than you know,” said Mr. Stiles, whose rustic home includes a cuckoo clock, a stuffed vulture, a vintage sled from Vladivostok and a round wooden shower inspired by a French milkmaid’s bucket.
About half the hamlet’s 16 zany structures are subsumed by vines and runaway bamboo. But Mr. Watts’s library and Ms. Gidlow’s house and cabin, among other buildings, hang on.
Even if Druid Heights qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, preservation will be very difficult, warned Alexandra Picavet, a spokeswoman for the Park Service. She cited cost, liability and safety concerns, since Muir Woods draws 5,000 visitors a day in season. The area is also home to endangered species like the spotted owl, which at night sounds “like a radar beeping,” Mr. Stiles said.
Erik Davis, a historian who included Druid Heights in his 2006 book, “The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape,” said the community had historic value. “The era doesn’t lend itself to historic buildings, because it was so transient,” he observed. “There aren’t a lot of places where you can memorialize this countercultural moment, so it’s a chance for recognition.”
And the preservation constituency is building: The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy sponsored two walks to Druid Heights, led by a guide who had grown a goatee for the occasions.
Yet Ms. Gidlow, who drew legions of lesbian pilgrims, wanted Druid Heights to become a retreat for female writers and artists after her death. Professor MacKinnon, who lived here while teaching at Stanford, argued that the community should stay a cocoon for creativity.
“It was a spiritually sustaining place,” she said. “I think Elsa’s idea should be honored.”
