Text reading 'Rogues, rebels, and rascals' in black font on a white background.

Text image stating 'Pulitzer Prize Winner' in large, bold fonts.

Text in bold stating "BRILLIANT ZEN MASTER" and smaller text below reading "ALCOHOLIC".

Text image stating 'Feminist Warrior Pagan' in bold black letters.

Text that reads 'LSD OUTLAW • ALIEN HUNTER' in black font on a light background.

Cover of a book titled 'Noon at Tiffany's' featuring a smiling woman with long brown hair, wearing a white crochet dress and earrings, and pictures of her at different ages, including one older woman sitting in a library and a young woman in a nurse's uniform with a child, both in outdoor settings.

Text graphic reading 'Porn Start of the Year' in black font on a white background.

Text on white background reading 'Sex Worker Advocate'

HIPPIE BEAUTY WRITES BEST SELLER

VISIONARY ARCHITECTURE MAY BE BULLDOZED UNDER

A traditional Japanese tea room with a circular window, tatami mat flooring, and a small wooden step leading into the room.

View through open stained glass doors into a cozy wooden treehouse with a built-in desk, shelves, and a chair, surrounded by trees and greenery.

An old, weathered house surrounded by overgrown vegetation and trees, with moss and dirt on the roof and a dilapidated wooden deck.

Interior of a music studio with a man working at a mixing console, surrounded by stereo equipment, a wooden desk, and a spherical wooden ornament.

REBEL FURNITURE MAKER BUILDS GRAHAM NASH STUDIO

A man with curly hair and a beard smiling, sitting in a vintage RV with wooden interior, with a yellow van visible through the window in the background.

ROGUE ARCHITECT & SON BUILD NEIL YOUNG TOUR BUS

Four people are inside a wooden-paneled vehicle, possibly a train, with a scenic view outside the window. They appear to be engaged in a conversation or a photo moment, with one man holding a bottle, and others smiling and looking at him.

The Beats, hippie radicals, Zen philosophers, feminist warriors, counterculture rebels, famous authors, superstar musicians, porn stars, and LSD outlaws. They all found their way to a hidden, bohemian paradise called Druid Heights. Hedonism and spirituality coexisted there. A charismatic, saxophone-playing playboy…

…presided over wild parties and a cast of eccentric storybook characters. Jack Kerouac wrote about some in The Dharma Bums. Now a forbidden California ghost town of astonishing abandoned architecture, only one man legally remains as guardian to a vanishing legacy and gatekeeper to the madcap, untold history of Paradise Found... and soon, perhaps Paradise Lost.

A man with long hair and a beard smiling, next to a book titled 'The Way of Zen' by Alan W. Watts.

A traditional Japanese-style teahouse interior view through a stairway with tatami mats, wooden sliding doors, a round window, and minimal decor.

Three women with curly hair engaging in a conversation, Nicely lit, in a black-and-white photo.

San Francisco Renaissance Goes Global

A sketch of a train traveling through cities with the text 'On The Road' in red, and a person walking with a book in hand on the left side. The right side shows a book cover titled 'The Way of Zen' by Alan W. Watts with Japanese calligraphy in the background.

1957: These two books were published. They captured the Zeitgeist of a nation in cultural upheaval. Watts lived at Druid Heights. Jack Kerouac featured Druid Heights resident, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Gary Snyder, in his book The Dharma Bums. Kerouac called Snyder “The King of the Beats.”

Jack Kerouac and Zen Superstar Alan Watts

A man in a plaid shirt playing a piano, with two inset images of different men in black-and-white; the top inset man is seated with a relaxed pose, and the bottom inset man wears a costume with a glowing purple gem on his chest.

1967: At Druid Heights the Beat Generation gives way to the Hippie revolution. Here Zen master Alan Watts moderates a debate among LSD evangelist Timothy Leary (left), Howl poet Allen Ginsberg, and “king of the Beats” Gary Snyder (right). Watts and Snyder both lived at Druid Heights. Watts died there.