In the end, after five sheriff’s deputies arrived, David Lee Hoffman agreed to leave the Lagunitas property into which he has poured his unbridled creativity for over 50 years. After he drove his boxy Honda S.U.V. down the long, winding driveway on Tuesday morning, they locked the iron gate behind him.
“Insanity!” he said upon exiting the creation he calls The Last Resort, a Tibetan-inspired experiment in sustainable design that has earned an entry in the National Register of Historic Places and praise from renowned architects and
engineers.
But where his many fans found inspiration, county officials saw more than 30 unpermitted structures and a raft of code violations. Mr. Hoffman has been engaged in one of the longest-running legal cases ever heard in Marin County Superior Court.
For more than a decade, the two sides have argued over what it would take to bring Mr. Hoffman’s two-acre compound up to code, and whether it could or should be saved. Over the years, five judges have been assigned to the case. The most recent, Stephen P. Freccero, a former federal prosecutor, finally lost patience, and last month he ordered Mr. Hoffman to leave the property by Monday at midnight.
But on Tuesday morning, Mr. Hoffman, an 82-year-old compulsive builder and importer of artisanal teas, was still there, wearing his trademark black beret and work clothes. He refused to leave when Eric Beatty, the court-appointed receiver in the case, arrived at 10 a.m. with a locksmith to change the dozens of locks on the steep hillside property.
“Folks, it is time for you to vacate the property,” Mr. Beatty told the group of friends packing up the last of 50,000 pounds of tea. “I appreciate that you’re here to support Mr. Hoffman, but the court has ordered the property completely vacated as of yesterday.”
Some 20 minutes later, deputies arrived one by one. Mr. Hoffman was nowhere to be seen. He had taken refuge inside, collecting his thoughts and perhaps a few last possessions, and speaking with his lawyer.
In the days leading up to this moment, he had vowed that he would only depart in handcuffs. “I’m not going to walk away with my tail between my legs,” he said last week. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t have permits, but nobody had permits back then.”
Eventually, his lawyer, Ann Draper, who has represented him pro bono for over two years, persuaded him to cooperate, and he did so, reluctantly. On his way out, he paused to speak with reporters and friends who had gathered outside.
“I saw there was an empty space on A Street in San Rafael for homeless people, but I’ve had offers from so many friends to stay with them,” he said. “I have no idea what I want to do now. I have a very hard time believing this is happening. It’s crazy. It’s absolutely nuts.”
Mr. Beatty, who is responsible for determining the fate of the property, declined to disclose his plans.
Laine Hendricks, director of communications for Marin, said the county is not advocating for a particular outcome. “Our interest remains ensuring the health, safety, and code violations at the property are resolved in accordance with the law and the court’s orders,” she said.
Mr. Beatty has told the court it would cost $3 million to pay off fines and debts, bring the buildings into compliance, and compensate him for his work. On the other hand, he calculated, removing the structures would cost just $185,000.
Mr. Hoffman fears he will knock everything down. “I’m told it’s easier to market the property with everything off of it,” he said. “Then you could build two mega-mansions, and the county would have more benefit.”
The Buckminster Fuller Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to innovative, ecologically friendly design, had expressed interest in purchasing the property and preserving it as a sort of living museum. Judge Freccero, who took over the case last winter, initially seemed open to the idea, but he lost patience when the county and the nonprofit failed to agree on the terms.
George Orbelian, the institute’s director, who was at the compound on Tuesday morning, said he hasn’t given up on finding a solution. “This place is as solid as the hillside,” he said. “Just look and you know it’s not cracking, it’s not settling. He built it really well.”
Like Mr. Orbelian, Mr. Hoffman’s supporters are still holding onto hope.
“This is a paradise,” said Barbara Framm, a San Anselmo resident who has known Mr. Hoffman for 40 years. “It is the work of a creative mind and spirit who has devoted his life to creating beauty and learning to live on the land lightly. Every time you turn a corner, you find something new and beautiful. He’s a visionary, and it would be criminal to let what he has created be destroyed.”
Over the past week, dozens of friends and supporters have shown up to help Mr. Hoffman pack up boxes of tea, an enormous collection of tools, and treasured Buddhist scrolls and artwork.
As they watched deputies arrive, one neighbor could not hold her temper: “Five of you to take an old man out of here?” she asked in disbelief. “I don’t get it, and I never want to be like you.”
Over the years, Mr. Hoffman built his dozens of structures from recycled materials, including granite from China’s Fujian Province, cobblestones from San Francisco, and slate shingles from the Los Angeles estate of musician Don Henley.
There’s an elaborate wastewater and greywater system, a three-story, solar-powered Shower Tower, and a worm-powered composting toilet called Le Grand Pissoir that embodies Mr. Hoffman’s credo: “Waste is not waste until it’s wasted.”
The centerpiece is a towering tea pagoda, the first structure he built on the land, with a sloping roof covered with green and blue Japanese tiles he installed himself. Inside stands a centuries-old shrine that contains a Tibetan apothecary lacquered in muted shades of red and orange. Its many drawers were built to hold traditional herbal medicines, and its pillars stand atop two stone elephants.
Mr. Hoffman, who traveled extensively through India and Nepal in the 1970s, has forged close ties with the Bay Area’s Tibetan refugee community, and he wants to gift the apothecary to the Dalai Lama, whom he has met several times.
In documents filed with the court, Mr. Beatty has argued that the apothecary cannot be safely removed. Ms. Draper has vowed to take legal action to prevent the receiver from taking it into his possession.
“That altar could be 500 years old,” said Rigpa Lodoe, a Tibetan émigré who traveled to Lagunitas from New York to help Mr. Hoffman pack up this week. “It’s really precious and historic.”
Last week, hoping to put off his eviction, Mr. Hoffman sent a personal letter to Judge Freccero, inviting to come see The Last Resort and consider giving him more time to work out a solution.
“It would really be heartbreaking to see my life’s work erased,” Mr. Hoffman wrote. “I’m 82 years old with chronic health issues, and I have always intended The Last Resort to endure as my legacy. Despite the troubles, I still wake up happy and grateful and try not to let reality ruin my day. I could be so much happier if all this were to be resolved.”