On Foot in San Diego: Encinitas Meditation Gardens

This weekend I had a buddy on my walkabout, my 12 year old granddaughter. Traipsing around looking at stuff was not her idea of fun - she'd rather stay at the house and watch TV on a Saturday morning. I sweetened the deal with a camera to use and a promise to stop by a funky outdoor clothes market.

We headed up to the Meditation Gardens in the Self-Realization Fellowship Retreat and Hermitage in Encinitas at the advice of Charles Boyd, a Charlestonian temporarily displaced in San Diego and now back in Charleston.

"It's not really sightseeing because it's in San Diego", Jennifer rationalized on the drive up. "I don't like sightseeing, Mommy always wants to do that when we go on vacation".


A Golden Lotus tower meets every traveler arriving into town from the south on historic Highway 101. Behind the tower lies the seventeen acre Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) for prayer and meditation. Most of the grounds are taken up by the Hermitage and Retreat. A few bluffside acres, perhaps two, of unbelievable beauty and serenity are dedicated to a Meditation Garden.

Before we got to the gardens, I took the opportunity to slip some history of Encinitas into the conversation. We drove past the Darby House and talked about the railroad beginnings of Encinitas, then past the Boat Houses and talked about how building the dams at Lake Hodges and San Dieguito in 1918 influenced the growth of the little town.

A mining engineer, James Noonan, bought the SRF property in 1887, built a house and moved his family here from Colorado. The house burnt to the ground six years later and the family moved away. Certainly there would have been no water to fight a fire at that time.

In 1936, James Lynn, a follower of Paramahansa Yogananda, bought the property and built the Hermitage on the bluffs, presenting it to him as a gift when he returned from a tour in Europe and India. Paramanhansa Yogananda lived and taught here in the Hermitage for the next twenty five years until his death in 1952.

Every inch of the gardens is beauty, bringing the beholder to a slow pace to absorb it all.


Gnarled trees give a feeling this place has been here forever. I missed the Ming Tree planted by the Yogi. That will have to be another trip.


Koi ponds...


Giant golden fish...


Beautiful blooming seaside succulents...


Weird little guys growing on rocks.


A Golden Lotus temple designed by Parmahansa Yogananda was built on the edge of the cliff in 1938 with a large pond to the side that mirrored the temple.


Unfortunately, the Temple slid down the cliffs in 1943, leaving only these steps.


Benches are placed everywhere in the gardens. These two couples sat unmoving for a long time. Thinking, praying, meditating?


Jennifer, a future film director, was completely absorbed photographing the gardens.


Her photos were a creative take on the environment.

Photo by Jennifer

Photo by Jennifer

She waited what seemed like hours for this dove to pop his head from behind the branch.

Photo by Jennifer

She caught the entanglement of a pine tree by nearby palm roots.

Photo by Jennifer

We topped off the day with cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake at the Highway 101 Diner -- ugh! I didn't want to think about the fat grams! -- took a look at the 1883 school house, located the 1926 sidewalk concrete stamp, and went to that funky outdoor market where she bought three cool shirts. I think I'll be having a buddy on future walkabouts.

"Let us pray in our hearts for a League of Souls and a United World. Though we may seem divided by race, creed, color, class, and political prejudices, still, as children of the one God we are able in our souls to feel brotherhood and world unity. May we work for the creation of a United World in which every nation will be a useful part, guided by God through man's enlightened conscience.

In our hearts we can all learn to be free from hate and selfishness. Let us pray for harmony among the nations, that they march hand in hand through the gate of a fair new civilization."

- Paramanhansa Yogananda -

On Foot in San Diego: Encinitas Boat Houses

Yesterday I trekked up to Encinitas, about ten minutes north of Del Mar, to get a glimpse inside the Encinitas Boat Houses. They were recently acquired by the Encinitas Preservation Association, but they are still rentals to help pay down the cost of the acquisition. One of the "houses" was between tenants and, for a few hours on Saturday, the public was allowed in. Having learned from my experience trying to get into the Marston House a few weeks ago, I was there early to be in the first group.


In the way of background, Encinitas is a beach town of about 60,000, sprung up when the California Southern Railroad was building a line between Oceanside and downtown San Diego in 1881, intended to connect with the transcontinental Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. As water and wood for train fuel were available from Cottonwood Creek, Encinitas was a made a stop on the way. The population at the time was about 20 people.

A second boost to the town came in the 1920's with the opening of Lake Hodges reservoir as a water source. The population around this time would have been 200 people. One of these guys was Miles Kellogg, a local builder, who salvaged redwood from the Moonlight Beach Dance Parlor and Bathhouse that bit the dust in 1928 during Prohibition. The wood pieces were too short to build a conventional house so Mr. Kellogg drew on his boat building experience back in Michigan and built the SS Moonlight and SS Encinitas in 1928 in the mode of vernacular architecture.

The inside of the "boat" definitely has a boat feel, complete with portholes,


a galley kitchen,


and bow deck. Well, not your typical bow view from a boat.


One benefit from my stint at rowing is being able to remember the differences between bow and stern, port and starboard. The tenants next door have nicely fixed up their bow, a relaxing place to sit at the end of a long work day with a glass of Merlot and a cat.


As with many of my walkabouts, the people you meet can be as interesting as the site. I struck up a discussion with a gentleman in our tour group who appeared to be late 80's in age, sharp and witty. Lord, let that be me. He recalled these quirky boat houses built around the time he and his family moved to Leucadia just up the coast. I wondered if he might be connected with the English spiritualists that settled Leucadia in 1870 -- pre-railroad! - and danced outdoors in diaphanous white robes - the reason many of the Leucadia streets are named after gods and goddesses. I was dying to ask him but settled on asking more mundane questions about his growing up in the area.

Looking across the 101 and railroad from the bow, you can see the Derby House, built in 1887 by a railroad foreman for his wife and daughters near the train station, but also as an overnight boarding house for train passengers. The house is still privately owned.


After leaving the Boat Houses, I walked around the corner and up the hill a bit to the 1883 one room schoolhouse, built when there were 11 adults and 8 children comprising the total of Encinitas. Colonial Revival architecture, I believe. It took me back to my own early one room school house days in a Kentucky hollow with my father as the teacher.


Researching the Boat Houses online, I came across this description from a tenant in the 1970's.

"The upstairs was unheated and could be very cold and drafty in a winter rain storm. There was a terrible wind storm in February 1974 that I thought might knock the boat off its moorings. But it rode out the storm without a problem."

Two decks, a sunlight-flooded upstairs office with windows on three sides, two bedrooms, 1/12 baths, looking for a tenant at $1,950/month. A steal!