In 1958, James and Anne Hubbell bought cheap land in the Cuyamaca Mountains east of San Diego to build a home with their own hands using materials from the land. Over the next several decades, they built a cluster of tiny homes across the property to accommodate their growing family and working needs.
Using only shovels, they dug into the hillside, using existing boulders as footings and wood milled on the property. Modeled after nature, the shelters seem to grow from the land with curving walls reminiscent of seashells. “There are no straight lines in the Hubbell Universe,” explains Hubbell Foundation director Marianne Gerdes.
When they outgrew their original one-room adobe cabin, they built a kitchen/living room as an independent structure, connected by a courtyard to a new bedroom space. This outdoor connection between the two parts of the home forced them to step outside, even during a snowy winter, and experience nature daily.
When they became a family of 6 and outgrew this space, they began building an independent “Boys’ House” for their 4 sons. It’s half-buried into the hill and modeled after a seashell. When we stepped inside, it felt like entering an animal burrow with flowing chambers connected by tunneling. “It’s like the ultimate gopher cave,” suggested Gerdes.
The 2003 Cedar Fire burnt down most of the couple’s own bedroom, but it went right over the partially subterranean Boy’s House (as well as their underground kiva), so the couple moved in here (their sons were now grown). “They talk about staying here as being a totally different space than their own homes,” explains Gerdes. “The round nature is what they call an amorphous space where you don't really know where you are at all times. You know, you're always surprised by the space.”
James Hubbell died this past spring, but the hillside hamlet he created continues to flourish. It’s now a site for artists to continue his work, crafting stained glass windows and metal works for others’ homes. It’s also open to public tours and is lived in by a caretaker couple who inhabit a “Cottage in the Woods” designed by James and his architect son Drew.
