The genius of the man is reflected in the granite walls of this home that he built with his own hands, this place as enduring and timeless as the poet's work.Carmel by the Sea was a wild, sparsely populated place when the California poet Robinson Jeffers and his wife Una arrived in 1914. Later visitors have included William Everson, Robert Bly, Czeslow Milosz and Edward Abbey.Īlmost all of Jeffers' writing was done at Tor House. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, George Gershwin and Charlie Chaplin. Many influential literary and cultural celebrities were guests of the Jeffers family. Later, after World War II, he began work on a new wing that was eventually completed by his son, Donnan. It was completed in less than four years, a remarkable feat since Jeffers built the tower entirely by himself! He utilized wooden planks and a block and tackle system to move the stones and to set them in place.įollowing the completion of Hawk Tower, he added a dining room to the original cottage. In 1920, the poet-builder began his work on Hawk Tower - a retreat for his wife and a magic place for his sons. Oil lamps and candles were the only means of illumination until electricity was installed in 1949. Jeffers apprenticed himself to the building contractor, thus learning the art of making 'stone love stone.' Construction was completed in mid-1919. The granite stones were drawn by horses from the little cove below the house. Modeled after a Tudor barn in England, it contained two attic bedrooms, a main floor guest room, the living room, a tiny kitchen and a single bathroom. The house was intentionally small, set low to the ground to withstand the great storms of winter.

Carmel Point, then, was a treeless headland, almost devoid of buildings.Ĭonstruction began in 1918. He called his home Tor House, naming it for the craggy knoll, the 'tor' on which it was built.

He sited the house on a point of land that meets the sea like the 'prow and plunging cutwater' of a ship. Robinson Jeffers, a giant among American poets, planned the original cottage as a home for his wife, Una, himself and their twin sons.

Who owns the tor house