Residence of world-famous artists

Druid Heights, California (USA)

The eccentric Druid Heights homes were built in 1954 on the southwestern slopes of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, by a carpenter named Roger Sommers and a lesbian poet named Elsa Gidlow. The land, formerly a five-acre chicken farm, was later converted into a large vegetable farm that supplied the surrounding area.

Druid Heights was also a refuge for many famous names such as poet Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, writer Catharine MacKinnon, the Eagles and the Doobie Brothers. There were a total of 16 structures, most prominently the library, meditation area, garden, reservoir... built here. Druid Heights is now a ruin, ruins, very few traces of a place that was once a place of renunciation for artists and writers.

Yaddo, New York (USA)

Financier Spencer Trask, the first owner of Yaddo, named the mansion after Yaddo, a word commonly pronounced by children that means “shadow.” To console his wife, writer Katrina Trask, after the death of their four children before they were born, Spencer Trask decided to turn Yaddo into a place of residence and creativity for artists of all artistic backgrounds.

Yaddo is located on a 1.6 km2 estate.², has a beautiful rose garden and is still a popular tourist attraction. Many famous names in the art world have stayed and created at Yaddo, and the place has recorded a total of 66 Pulitzer Prizes, 61 National Book Awards and 1 Nobel Prize (by author Saul Bellow in 1975)…

Max Gate, Dorset (UK)

The great English poet, Thomas Hardy, was born in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, near Dorchester, but spent his youth in London. At the age of 34, due to health conditions, he returned to Dorset, living in a small house he designed from 1885 to 1928. Here, the writer wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, The Mayor of Casterbridge as well as many other great poems.

Max Gate is now owned by the National Trust, a cultural conservation organization. Many of the original Thomas Hardy-era furniture remains here, some of which has been transferred to the Dorset County Museum for study.

Taos, New Mexico (USA)

Taos has long been a haven for artists in the West, thanks to the efforts of Mabel Dodge Luhan, an art patron, to establish the area in the early 20th century. There are three art museums and about 80 galleries in Taos. Mabel Dodge Luhan's house, now a hotel, has been home to such notables as DH Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe, and Willa Cather.

Pollock-Krasner House, New York (USA)

Pollock-Krasner House is known as the artist's enclave. Jackson Pollock, a famous American painter, and his wife, Lee Krasner, also a famous abstract painter, once lived in this wooden house. The artist couple owned the house for $5,000 with the help of collector Peggy Guggenheim, who lent them $2,000 in 1945 and planned it as an ideal workplace.

Jackson Pollock died in this house with less than six bedrooms in 1956. Lee Krasner continued to live and work there until his death in 1984. The house is now managed by the Stony Brook Foundation in New York. In 1994, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark.

Dove Cottage (UK)

Dove Cottage is located in the beautiful Lake District of England, where the Romantic poet William Wordsworth lived with his sister Dorothy and wrote many famous poems in the early 19th century. The two poet brothers lived here from December 1799 to May 1808, and those were the days they considered “simple but full of wisdom”.

When William Wordsworth married Dorothy's childhood friend Mary Hutchinson in 1802, the house became too small for the birth of three children, William Wordsworth's children, and they left this beautiful garden retreat to find a more spacious place to live. After a period of occupation and rent, an idol of William Wordsworth's talent bought the house in 1890 and opened it to the public in 1891. Today, the house has not changed much and attracts up to 70,000 visitors a year.

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