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Carmel
Plans to move to England ended in 1914 and led the Jeffers family to Carmel
In the fall of 1914 Robinson Jeffers and his wife, Una, gave up their plans to move to England because of the likelihood of war in Europe. A friend recommended the small coastal village of Carmel. In 1919 they bought property at Carmel Point, where they could view the ocean.
“In 1919 we built Tor House on a knoll where stones jutting out of the treeless moor reminded us of tors on Dartmoor.”
Una Jeffers, writing in 1941
The house
Granite boulders were hauled up from the beach with ropes and horses
Jeffers contracted a Carmel developer in May 1919 to build a stone cottage inspired by an old Tudor barn that Una had seen in England. Granite boulders were hauled from the beach below with heavy ropes and horses. The house had no electricity until 1949.
Hawk Tower
Jeffers built Hawk Tower himself, dragging boulders of up to 400 pounds
Una was fascinated by the ruined round towers of Ireland. Jeffers began the tower in 1920 and finished it in late 1924, dragging boulders from the beach, some weighing 400 pounds. The finished tower was 40 feet high. Una's symbol, a unicorn, sits above her door and a hawk above his.
40 feetthe height of the finished tower
His voice
Jeffers is thought to have found his voice as a poet while building the tower
It was while building Hawk Tower between 1920 and 1924 that Jeffers is thought to have discovered his voice as a poet. The Tor House Foundation was established in 1978 to oversee the house and tower as a museum, and the site became a National Historic Landmark in 2024.
Day 4, afternoon
It comes after Garrapata State Park.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Tor House and Hawk Tower, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.