Back-to-Landers Built Their Utopia in Northern California. It’s Slowly Disappearing

In the late 1960s and 70s, nearly a million Americans went back to the land. Seeking a simpler life, free from government intervention and the era’s strict social mores, they gathered in communes or built on their own plots of land. The lives they led and the homes they built – geodesic domes, psychedelic stained glass hideaways, and homes from chicken coops and recycled lumber – are documented in a new book, “Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California.” We talk to its author, David Jacob Kramer and a few of the folks featured, many now in their eighties, who built their utopia from hand.

Guests:

• David Jacob Kramer, author, “Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California”
• Tom Hessler, artist
• Karen Hessler, ceo, Amaranth Farms
• Diana Wiedemann, architect, Wiedemann was an original member of Trillium, a lesbian commune that published “Country Woman” magazine
• Chris Larson, featured in book “Handmade Utopia”