Qus: 4).What is the Latitude & Longtitude Of the location?Īns: Latitude of the location is 36.54207 Longtitude of the location is -121.9323 Call them before going to the location.Īns: Yes. Qus: 2).What are the hours of operation ?Īns: Open all days mostly from 9:30 to 8:30 and exceptions on Sundays. Qus: 1).what is the mode of payment accepted ? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.Frequently Asked Questions About This Location MCDONALD: Ruchowitz Roberts says he can't think of a better way to spend the day than walking through Tor House and sharing Jeffers' poetry.įor NPR News, I'm Rachael McDonald in Carmel, Calif. I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do on the warm stone, nor at the foot of your bed.

Leave on the kitchen floor the marks of my drinking pan. So leave a while the paw marks on the front door, where I used to scratch to go out or in, and you'd soon open. And you, if you dream a moment, you see me there. I cannot now run with you in the evenings along the shore, except in a kind of dream. ROBERTS: (Reading) I've changed my ways a little. Ruchowitz Roberts reads the poem while standing next to the dog's headstone. Jeffers wrote a poem, 'The House Dog's Grave,' from the dog's point of view. MCDONALD: One of the most personal touches is in the garden, where Haig - Jeffers' English bulldog - is buried. LJ ZIGERELL: He did an amazing job, and it was really nice to get sort of personal touches about Jeffers. LIN LIN ZIGERELL: It's our honeymoon, so I Google online to see everything that is interesting for us to pay a visit. and Lin Lin Zigerell, newlyweds from Pittsburgh. His book of selected poems has never been out of print. MCDONALD: Jeffers made the cover of Time magazine in 1932. Then he'd sit down, handwrite it, and then later type it. ROBERTS: And the way Jeffers would compose his poems is, he'd walk back and forth, work the lines out in his head. MCDONALD: Everyone takes a turn in the chair.

ROBERTS: If you'd like to sit in the chair he sat in while he wrote his poetry. People on the tour can go inside and sit at Jeffers' desk. MCDONALD: Jeffers hauled stones up from the beach to build the tower. ROBERTS: Hawk Tower took five years to build, 1920 to 1925. MCDONALD: On the same property next to Tor House, Jeffers built what he called Hawk Tower for his wife, Una. And it was during this time that, as he later wrote, his fingers learned the art of making stone, love stone. ROBERTS: And Jeffers - because he felt the construction was going too slow - paid himself $4 a day to help build the house. MCDONALD: Jeffers hired a builder to construct the original house out of stone, in 1916. And the last line of the poem is: How dear you will be to me when I too grow old, old comrade. And he comes and he pours wine and white milk and honey on it, to consecrate it. ROBERTS: And he has a poem called 'To the Rock That Will Be The Cornerstone Of The House,' which he wrote before he built the house. MCDONALD: He stands at the side of the large boulder with a group of six people who listen raptly while the ocean roars below. Tor House is named for a rock outcropping, which the Irish call a Tor. He infuses his tours with Jeffers' poems, most recited from memory. MCDONALD: Seventy-six-year-old Ruchowitz Roberts has been leading people through Jeffers' home for about 15 years. And then, once I came here and lived in the area, I began to read Jeffers and of course, that's what drew me to Tor House. And I asked him what was the occasion, and he said it was the death of Robinson Jeffers. Ruchowitz Roberts was teaching in the Midwest.ĮLLIOT RUCHOWITZ ROBERTS: And one of my colleagues got drunker earlier than usual that day. RACHEL MCDONALD, BYLINE: Elliot Ruchowitz Roberts grew up on the East Coast, and didn't hear about Robinson Jeffers until about the time the poet died. The house sits on a cliff, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.Īs part of our summer Nickel Tour series, Rachael McDonald, of member station KLCC, introduces us to another poet who gives tours of Tor House. The late poet Robinson Jeffers built Tor House in Carmel, Calif., in the early 20th century.

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