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
Kauai Film Taylor Camp
The Kauai film Taylor Camp is a detailed documentary of the ultimate hippie fantasy of a group of free-thinking radicals starting their own community on a picturesque Hawaiian beach. The year was 1969. Howard Taylor, artist, oceanographer, and brother of actress Elisabeth, decided to bail out a mischievous group of mainlanders who had recently been arrested for vagrancy. Once they were freed, Taylor invited them to live on his land in Haena. To say that they took Taylor up on his generous offer would be an understatement at best, as his land was soon overrun by every hippie, surfer, seeker, and psychologically scarred Vietnam vet capable of making their way to Kauai. They created a community of tree houses on the beach at the end of the road, with a long hair, marijuana-friendly, clothing-optional lifestyle in the era of flower power, anti-war riots, and the Age of Aquarius.
John Wehrheim (producer, photographer, and writer) was sent to Hawaii by the Sierra Club in 1969, where he wrote and photographed a series of articles entitled “Paradise Lost” and then never went back to the mainland. In 1975, John began to seriously photograph the Taylor Camp community, seeing it’s significance as both a traditional village and refugee settlement. The treehouses were built with the same materials that poor squatters used throughout the tropical world – bamboo, scrap lumber, rough logs, branches, plastic sheeting, salvaged tin roof, mosquito netting, and cheap printed fabrics. But this
camp was built in the spirit of playful creativity and whimsical practicality next to a stream in a pristine forest along a beach in paradise.
Thirty years later, a film made of footage shot at Taylor Camp, blending with vivid black and white photographs, rare historic footage, and interviews with the very people who once made their homes there, creates a living tribute to a forgotten community of dreamers who longed for something more. You can learn more at http://www.taylorcampkauai.com.
