Kauai Book Taylor Camp

Taylor Camp is a book that reminds us of one period in time when all things were possible. It is the story of what really happened when a group of hippies, anti-war activists, surfers, and troubled Vietnam vets formed a clothing-optional, drug-friendly tree house village at the end of the road on the North Shore of Kauai.

In 1969 the brother of Elizabeth Taylor bailed out a rag-tag band of thirteen young mainlanders jailed on Kauai for vagrancy and invited them to camp on his oceanfront land, then left them on their own, without any restrictions, regulations, or supervision. Soon waves of hippies, refugees from campus riots, war protesters, and Vietnam vets found their way to the North Shore to expand this tree house village. In 1971 John Wehrheim began seriously photographing Taylor Camp as a settlement of refugees living next to a crystalline stream in a tropical forest along a beach in paradise. In 1977, after condemning the village to make way for a State Park, government officials torched the camp, leaving little but ashes and memories of the ‘best days of our lives’.

Thirty years later John tracked down and interviewed these residents, their neighbors, and the government officials who finally got rid of them and created this book Taylor Camp. It is beautifully produced and the 258 pages are interwoven with 108 fine art photographs, stories, interviews, and a fold out map. His powerfully evocative photographs reveal a community that rejected consumerism for the healing power of Nature, and created order without rules. It’s a journey to the end of the road on the most remote and lush Hawaiian island, told by those that lived there, on the beach, on a stream, in the jungle in their treehouses. See a sneak peek inside Taylor Camp right here.