Today the home, tower and gardens are open to the public. Family members still return for the annual garden party the first Sunday in May. In the ”70s a fund was created to purchase the property and maintain Jeffers” literary legacy. Jeffers outlived Una by a decade, passing away in 1962 on the morning of a rare winter storm that left two inches of snow on Carmel Beach. Literary quotes and allusions hide behind ceiling beams and above doorways, in secret cupboards and forgotten niches. Tor House embodies all three, with an unexpected sense of play. Jeffers” life was rooted in place, in passion, in poetry. Look closely and you will find Big Sur jade, Hawaiian lava, even a stone from the beach below Tintagel, King Arthur”s storied castle in Cornwall. Complete with a dungeon, secret staircase, and battlements, it overlooks the cottage and an old-world garden, paths and walls embedded with architectural relics and scavenged materials gathered from the Jefferses” travels. The tower began as a sanctuary for Una, became a playground for their boys, and continues to be a place to find inspiration. They doubled the height of the seawall facing Scenic. In 1920 Jeffers began work on Hawk Tower as a gift for Una, using a block and tackle system as the ancient Egyptians had done.īy 1924 stone by stone and word by word he had completed the tower and found a publisher for his works. The builders left, but Jeffers carried on the work alone, bringing stones up from the beach, adding a seawall, garage, dining hall and a second wing for his growing boys. Working side-by-side with the mason, Jeffers found he could not just write but also build, that “his fingers had the art to make stone love stone.” They called their home Tor House after the craggy knoll – or “tor” – upon which it stood and christened the cornerstone with wine, milk and honey. In 1918 Jeffers came into money and bought land on Carmel Point, planted the first of thousands of trees, and began work on the Surrey-style cottage that was to be their home.
Jeffers called it “their inevitable place.” There were no homes there then, just a nine-holegolf course populated by cows, sheep and a flock of wild geese. On misty mornings Robinson and Una and their bulldog, Billie, would walk Carmel Point and picnic among the rocks. Scenic Drive was just a dirt path then, bounded by scrub, rock and sand – and 45 different varieties ofwildflowers (Una counted and catalogued them!). Carmel was to be a refuge from wagging tongues and a haven from grief.
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