In Santa Cruz, a Site Steeped in Lore Gets a New Neighbor That Incorporates Its Eccentricities

This story is part of our annual look at the state of American design. This year, we’re highlighting work that shines through an acrimonious moment—and makes the case for optimism.

If you strolled down Santa Cruz’s Fair Avenue toward the ocean a decade ago, you would pass rows of single-family homes, a church, and a sight that would stop you in your tracks. On an overgrown field spanning four contiguous lots stood a collection of cryptic brick structures ornamented with abalone shells and arcane symbols. More or less abandoned since the mid-1960s, it was a strange sight, even for a town celebrated for being unconventional.

Known informally as the Yogi Temple, the Watts Towers of Santa Cruz, and the Court of Mysteries, it was created by an eccentric Pennsylvania brick mason named Kenneth Kitchen and his stonemason brother, Raymond. Over the years, the oddball property—which included a dwelling, a well house, a gate, and two obelisks—changed hands and fell into neglect, but that only seemed to amplify the lore surrounding it. Legend has it that the triangular plaque adorned with a sun, moon, and stars atop the entry gate could prophesy an impending apocalypse and that the siblings built the structures under the cloak of night in a nod to the occult—though it may have been because they both had day jobs. Reflecting fears stoked by World War II, the well was said to contain a device designed to interfere with transmissions from enemy submarines, and the obelisks were rumored to conceal antennae.

According to architect and preservationist Nancy Goldenberg, who conducted a historical survey of the site in 2016, Kenneth bought the property around 1935 and began constructing the central building, while keeping goats on the northern part of the lot. The well house followed, along with the obelisks, the mysterious gate, and a concrete fence with brick-and-abalone posts that ran along the street.