Category: Skyline

As the “illegal” handmade houses on John Wickett’s land attracted the attention of the local press, reporters made the difficult trek to the 4,400-acre Skyline property. Besides Kendall Whiting’s famous five-story- tall treehouse, reached by a rustic “outdoor elevator”, the men and women carrying reporter’s notebooks jotted down other activities they observed–silkscreening, glass blowing and pottery-making.

“There were lots of babies and children and cats. Lots of construction,” John Wickett told me. He said that the creative builders “ripped up parts of the old sawmill and used the wood to make little houses inside of bigger houses.”

Of course all building codes had been ignored. “Nothing had been done with building codes,” Wickett noted. This only caused the district attorney’s office to redouble their efforts to get the young free spirits off the property.

But time was still on John Wickett’s side.

While searching for a solution, John invited his son, Jim–then a student at Menlo College–to spend a summer on the Skyline land. He told Jim, “You can be helpful and get things a little bit organized. We’ve got all these materials that people are building their houses with…Maybe you could supervise a bit.”

Young Jim Wickett was so successful at his task that he stayed on after the school summer break was over. He still had much to straighten out as publicity about the place had reached far and wide. Strangers continued to arrive in caravans of day-glo painted school buses. Others camped out on the property and what was once pristine was now being threatened.

“It started becoming too much,” John Wickett said.

…To Be Continued…

In 1979 John Wickett explained me me that “They [his guests, the members of the Floating Lotus Opera Co.] were hoping I’d just gone away and whenever I’d be on the property, walking around near them, someone would get me talking about something in the opposite direction.”

Of course the tactics didn’t fool John Wickett. “Eventually,” he said, “I found all the buildings.”

The “buildings” were actually handmade houses tucked away on Wickett’s property. To reach the “spectacularly innovative” houses with views of the Coastside mountains and the glimmering Pacific Ocean, John had to hike on crooked dirt paths, duck under tangled limbs, while always pushing away leafy foliage. In one sun-soaked clearing he recalled admiring a geodesic dome made from scratch.

Of course–none of the structures were designed or built to meet stringent county codes. Instead they were built to challenge the imagination. One unusual house, John said, featured a storybook “drawbridge with chains and all of these platforms going out.”

…To Be Continued…

[Recap: In the 1960s the colorful members of the aptly named Floating Lotus Opera Company were happily living on John Wickett’s 4,400-acre Skyline property. Meanwhile, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s office was hounding Wickett because of neighbor’s complaints about these same guests, who, as free spirits weren’t wearing very much clothing.]

During a 1979 interview at John Wickett’s 4-story Pacific Heights, San Francisco home, he told me that most of the young free spirits “used assumed names to forget their pasts.” Most often they took one very sweet new name like “Sunshine”, “Blue” or “Flower”. The 1960s was the era of the famous “flower children” and John said “they didn’t want to embarass their parents.”

One who changed his name was the artist Jim Maggio. On Wickett’s land, he re-named himself “Sandy Castle”–and he brought new and fascinating young creative people to Skyline. “People from top-notch, affluent East Coast families,” John told me.

Later, according to John Wickett, Sandy became the manager of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young–the signature ’60s musical group that is synoymous with the flower children movement. (And eventually Neil Young bought land near Wickett’s property). You could love the English Beatles or the Stones, but you’d surely have a collection of CSN& & Y albums. They created the authentic American mood of the time.

The County D.A. was trying to force people off Wickett’s land but he managed to delay their legal moves for a while. Whenever the pressure intensified, he gently told the flower children, “You can’t be so evident.”

They loved the cool breezes at the top of the mountain, and the warm sunlight in the magical meadows– and, taking Wickett’s advice to heart, they retreated deeper into the woods where they hoped they would not be seen.

But on a sparkly sunny Skyline afternoon, the sound of hammers and handsaws broke the warm silence.

…To Be Continued…