Poet Robinson Jeffers hauled 400-pound boulders from the beach to build this stone cottage and tower between 1919 and 1924 — then wrote that he would haunt it after his death.
26304 Ocean View Ave, Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA 93923
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
$25 adults, $10 full-time students. Tours run hourly, 10 AM–1 PM Fridays and Saturdays; book online well in advance as tours sell out.
Access
Limited Access
Stone cottage and 40-foot stone tower with steep interior stairs; coastal terrain on Carmel Point. Not wheelchair accessible.
Equipment
No Photos
Est. 1919 · Robinson Jeffers Home and Studio · National Historic Landmark · Hand-Built Stone Architecture
Robinson Jeffers was born in Pittsburgh in 1887 and arrived at the University of Southern California at fourteen. After graduate studies in literature, medicine, and forestry, he married Una Call Kuster in 1913 following her divorce. The couple planned to move to England in 1914, but the outbreak of World War I blocked the passage, and they rerouted to Carmel-by-the-Sea — a decision that proved permanent.
Jeffers's father died in 1914 and left him an annuity sufficient to support a life of writing. In spring 1919, the couple purchased the Carmel Point property and Jeffers began constructing Tor House with a hired stonemason, working as the mason's apprentice to learn the trade. The cottage was habitable by 1919 and completed in 1924. With those skills acquired, Jeffers built Hawk Tower entirely himself between 1920 and 1924, dragging boulders up from Carmel Beach and placing them without mechanical assistance. The finished tower stood 40 feet high and included a writing room, a turret, and a small dungeon.
Jeffers wrote all of his major poetry at Tor House: Tamar (1924), Roan Stallion (1925), The Women at Point Sur (1927), and many others. He lived here through Una's death in 1950, through his own declining years, and died at Tor House in January 1962 at age 75.
The Tor House Foundation was established in 1978 to preserve the property as a museum. It offers regular docent-led tours and maintains Jeffers's study essentially as he left it. The complex is a National Historic Landmark.
Sources
Robinson Jeffers anticipated his own ghost in print. His poem 'Ghost' describes returning to haunt the stone house he built, drawn back to the coastal view and the rough granite walls. That stated intention has shaped decades of reports from docents and visitors who describe a male figure moving across interior rooms toward the ocean-facing windows.
A Tor House Foundation docent reported seeing the apparition of Jeffers himself walk across a room and stop to look out toward the sea — a detail consistent across multiple independent accounts over the years. The former president of the Tor House Foundation confirmed separately that he witnessed a female figure enter Hawk Tower.
An overnight paranormal investigation team who spent a night in the house concluded that the primary presence was not Jeffers but his wife Una, who died in the house in 1950. They reported capturing a thermal image consistent with a human form and recorded audio they interpreted as Una's voice.
The site was featured on the television program Ghost Adventures, which conducted its own investigation and documented activity in both the cottage and Hawk Tower. Cameras are not permitted during standard tours; the Ghost Adventures episode remains one of the primary visual documents of the reported phenomena.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A 90-minute docent-led tour through the granite cottage and 40-foot tower that Robinson Jeffers built by hand between 1919 and 1924. Tours cover Jeffers's poetry, the construction process, his wife Una, and the foundation's maintenance of the site as a museum. Includes climbing Hawk Tower. Limited to 6 guests per tour.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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