Locke McCorkle: Roger Somers, Paul Hamilton and Druid Heights

This week's excitement was that I had a chance to speak with Locke McCorkle.  He's 91 and as keen-witted as ever.  He's a model for one of the main characters in Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums.  In his oral history, he does talk about Paul Hamilton, the architect who lived in Orinda, and his wife Rita.  

Paul was friends with Roger Somers, a designer, builder and jazz musician.  Roger, along with poet Elsa Gidlow, helped create Druid Heights, the bohemian counter-culture retreat in Marin, that is on the National Record of Historic Places.

Along with projects at Druid Heights, the two collaborated on the Tallac House in Tahoe and perhaps other projects.  Paul is noted as the architect of the Tallac House, the house that was used for the Whitney Houston movie, "The Bodyguard" and also for "City of Angels."  Here's a real estate listing for the house from 2015: http://southtahoenow.com/story/03/27/2015/lake-tahoe-s-tallac-house-was-featured-bodyguard-lists-8m.

From phone call with Locke on 7/19/2021: 

Locke's relationship was complicated as Paul was great friends with Roger Somers.

Roger's wife at the time left him and came with Locke McCorkle.  That was wife #2.

Locke is now with wife number #5.

Rita Hamilton:  "She was a very likeable person."

"Paul was more difficult.  He was a little tighter. "

Rita was like, "well you should marry me."  

"I can't afford you".  

"Why?  How much do you charge?"  "5%.   I have all the work I can handle."

"Charge 10% and marry me."  That's what Paul did.

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0:06:04 Locke McCorkle: Yeah, I was living there on Montford Ave., but it also had to do with the fact that Roger was a designer and a carpenter. He was not officially an architect, but he made friends with Paul Hamilton who lived over in Orinda, Paul and Rita. Paul was an architect, and they became very close friends. In fact, at Roger’s memorial, which happened right at the place right after he passed away, Paul Hamilton gave a talk. 

3 0:06:52 Debra Schwartz: And you were a builder yourself, correct? 

0:06:54 Locke McCorkle: Yeah, I was. They were very Frank Lloyd Wright inspired, and so they turned me on to Frank Lloyd Wright and all that. It’s very interesting, ’cause the house that Roger built there was quite a trip. I once asked Paul Hamilton, an architect who was also superb, if he would ever hire Roger to build a house for him or build anything. And he said, “Yeah,” but that about two-thirds through he’d fire him because he doesn’t stop, he just keeps architectural-zing it until it’s too much. I don’t know, I haven’t been in that house for years and years and years, but the kitchen used to have woodwork in it like you would never put in a kitchen. [chuckles] It just got more and more decorative.

(Roger Somers was also noted for a decorative bus he did for Neil Young.)

From Mill Valley Oral History Program, Locke McCorkle on Druid Heights, as interviewed by Debra Schwartz.

Description:

"In this rollicking oral history, Locke McCorkle recounts a colorful life full of passion, humor, and adventure. Born in San Jose in 1930 — and at the time of this interview proudly "as old as God and as young as spring"— Locke grew up in Eureka, California. After studying English and French at Humboldt State University, he moved down to the Bay Area to attend graduate school at Berkeley, but changed his course when he heard Alan Watts’ lectures on eastern spirituality. While studying with Watts in San Francisco, he befriended the poet Gary Snyder with whom he moved over to Mill Valley in the late 1950s. Through Snyder, Locke became acquainted with many of the Beats — serving as a model for one of the major characters of Jack Kerouac’s 1958 novel The Dharma Bums — and he vividly describes the parties and personalities of this period in Mill Valley’s postwar history. Throughout the interview Locke recollects his friendships, adventures, and marriages, as well as his various forms of employment, including a number of years working as a house manager for Erdhard Seminars Training founder Werner Erhard. Locke ends his oral history with a poignant evocation of community in Mill Valley and a paean to the spirituality of motorcycle riding."

https://millvalley.pastperfectonline.com/archive/132FF6B7-B009-4C5E-809C-572703440940