The Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is a nonprofit organization of volunteer members established in 1978 to acquire, maintain and provide for public access to Tor House, Hawk Tower and the surrounding gardens.

The Foundation sponsors events and publishes material designed to preserve and extend the cultural and literary legacy of Robinson Jeffers, poet of California.

Robinson Jeffers burst upon the national literary scene in 1925 with the New York publication of Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems. Before that, he was a poet of California, admired by an enthusiastic coterie of West Coast intellectuals. In the immediate years that followed, Jeffers was heralded as a new Whitman. One of his critics placed him in the company of Aeschylus, Dante, and Shakespeare, to mention only a few. The story of Jeffers’ spectacular rise and of his fall from critical grace has been much told. In the twenties he was the darling of the avant-garde left. In the thirties he was the bête-noire of the New Critics. In the forties he was, in effect, censored by his publisher, Random House, for his anti-war views. The fifties considered him a minor poet but a major playwright. He was rescued in the sixties as a spokesman for the peace movement. In the decades that followed he was extolled most often as the “Poet of the Central California Coast,” the environmentalist par excellence. Jeffers never won the Nobel Prize; he never won a Pulitzer; he certainly never would have been a likely choice for Poet Laureate. Jeffers, himself, said that he wrote not for the present but for a thousand years into the future. And yet, this year, forty-five years after the final volume of his verse, The Beginning and the End was published posthumously, thirty years after the Tor House Foundation was formed to preserve his home and heritage, he has been greatly honored to be the subject of a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read program. The Big Read will introduce him to a new generation of readers. Those of us who have long admired his voice, welcome the exposure. We know that, despite all the hyperbole over the years, both positive and negative, Jeffers’ work reaches the reader as few other modern poets do. He has staying power. In good times, in troubled times, and “in these times,” Jeffers remains a quintessential American prophet, philosopher, and poet, someone who is not afraid to provoke the reader into confronting the big questions that do not change with the fashions.

Tours

Tour Tor House ... climb Hawk Tower, reminiscent of ancient Irish stone towers.  Stroll through an English cottage garden rich in color, texture and fragrance.  Experience the atmosphere that inspired some of America\'s finest poetry.  Step back in time and follow the romance of Carmel's poet.

Docent-led tours of Tor House, Hawk Tower and the old-world gardens are conducted hourly every Friday and Saturday.  The first tour begins at 10 a.m. and the final tour at 3 p.m.  Each tour is limited to a maximum of six people.  For safety reasons, children under 12 years of age are not allowed.

Tour reservations should be made in advance via email at thf@torhouse.org or through the Foundation office at 831-624-1813.  We accept checks or cash. $10 for adults, $5 for full-time students 12 years old and older.

*To allow sufficient time to confirm reservation date and time, email requests must be received at least one week in advance.  Please provide alternate dates and/or times if possible.  Reservations are only assured if you receive a confirming email. Email requests are only processed Monday-Thursday.