Archives for July 2012

Marin Independent Journal Editorial in support of The Last Resort

WE HOPE Marin Supervisor Steve Kinsey can find a way to resolve Lagunitas artisan David Lee Hoffman’s county permit problems.

Hoffman’s backyard creations are supposed to be models of sustainability. His efforts also have created run-ins with county enforcement officials.

Kinsey hopes he can work with Hoffman and county staff to come up with a compromise where the 68-year-old Hoffman can bring his creations up to county codes and reduce his numerous fines “to a more manageable amount.” An administrative law judge has ordered Hoffman to pay $226,000 in county fines and to tear down the 30 or so structures he built as models of sustainable living. The judge threw the book at Hoffman. [Read more…]

Business Insider article on The Last Resort

 Mandi Woodruff from Business Insider has written an article about The Last Resort

http://www.businessinsider.com/tour-david-hoffmans-sustainable-home-before-its-demolished-2012-7?op=1#ixzz298mRctYp

Marin Independent Journal article about The Last Resort

Paul Liberatore of the Marin Independent Journal has written an article about The Last Resort:

WHAT TO MAKE of tea entrepreneur David Lee Hoffman’s condemned San Geronimo Valley experiment in sustainable living, his Asian-inspired compound with its solar power shower tower, its worm palace, its boat in a moat, its compost toilets and gran pissoir?

Is it an art installation or an eyesore, a bold experiment in alternative living or a public health hazard? Is it to be razed or praised?

Those are some of the questions facing the 68-year-old Hoffman and the Marin County officials whose stop-work orders and red tags he has blithely ignored for the past 40 years as he built his funky Himalayan-style kingdom on a Lagunitas hillside without benefit of official government permits, in blatant violation of county codes and environmental health regulations. [Read more…]