She had already broken ground by publishing Les Mouches Fantastiques, an underground magazine published between 1918-20 that's considered the first gay publication in North America. As author and former part-time Druid Hills resident Hallie Iglehart Austen said: "The vision that these folks, Elsa and Roger in particular, had to just create their own world even outside the bohemian world they'd been part of in San Francisco, was quite remarkable."īorn in England in 1898 and raised in Quebec, Gidlow was only 25 when she wrote On a Grey Thread, the first book of lesbian love poetry published in the US. In her later years, Gidlow continued to publish, give readings and speak at conferences, and gathered a following of younger women whom she mentored at Druid Heights. Gidlow's 1975 book, Ask No Man Pardon: The Philosophical Significance of Being Lesbian, was a landmark of gay liberation, as was the film in which she participated, Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, the first feature-length documentary about gay identity made by gay filmmakers. "It was a hotbed of creative fulfillment and a place that people felt safe, and when you think about the world today, the need for places where people feel safe is so important."įrom this wooded community came books of leading feminist and lesbian thought, Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry, provocative experimental films, recordings of genre-bending jazz and numerous groundbreaking philosophical and spiritual treatises, like Watts' book, The Way of Zen. ![]() Birnbaum, president and CEO of the nonprofit The Cultural Landscape Foundation, which works to preserve culturally valuable places and includes Druid Heights among its most at-risk sites. ![]() "This site is so extraordinary in the quality of its setting, in what was being done there and the lives that were being lived, and you feel that as soon as you step into this landscape," said Charles A. A longtime friend of Gidlow's, Watts gave public teachings at Druid Heights, wrote six of his seminal books in his library on the property and died there in 1973. "As scholar Erik Davis put it in my film, Druid Heights was this vortex of social and artistic energy, this community of such illustrious characters, such great art, such huge influence and it was literally off the map," said Marcy Mendelson, director and producer of the documentary Druid Heights. "Going there was like turning the corner into the Shire."īut the resident who first drew legions of visitors to Druid Heights was Alan Watts, a British former Episcopalian minister who is often credited with popularising Buddhism and Taoism in the West. The community's importance extended through waves of cultural change, from the Beatnik poets and philosophers of the late 1950s through the psychedelic and spiritual explorations of the '60s and early '70s to the gay liberation, radical feminism and gender politics of the late '70s and early '80s.Ī host of luminaries were drawn to the site, among them poets Alan Ginsberg and Gary Snyder musicians Neil Young, Dizzy Gillespie and members of Fleetwood Mac actors Lily Tomlin and Tom Smothers noted feminist law professor Catharine MacKinnon and activist Margo St James, known for her high-profile campaign advocating for sex workers. Like a West Coast version of the Hotel Chelsea or Algonquin Round Table, these 18 architecturally distinctive buildings hidden in the woods served as home, school, workshop and intellectual incubator to an eclectic circle of leading alternative thinkers of their time. Here, tucked deep in a canyon and slowly sinking back into the forest, lie the decaying wooden remnants of Druid Heights, a trailblazing bohemian community that some consider the US' only LGBTQ+ Historic District (a collection of buildings of historical or architectural significance.)įounded in 1954 by lesbian poet Elsa Gidlow and builder Roger Somers, Druid Heights became a cultural hub that profoundly influenced a multitude of cultural currents during its 30-year heyday, from gay liberation and radical feminism to Zen Buddhism. ![]() In 2022, nearly 800,000 people from around the world visited Muir Woods National Monument just north of San Francisco, California, to marvel at the groves of towering redwoods – among the tallest and oldest trees in the world.īut just a mile and a half from the park's entrance in a separate part of the park, another significant site remains largely unknown, despite its prominent role in LGBTQ+ and counterculture history.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |