The Project Avalon Community Forum - Alternative Living https://projectavalon.net/forum4/ en Sun, 06 Sep 2026 01:44:39 GMT vBulletin 30 https://projectavalon.net/forum4/images/misc/rss.png The Project Avalon Community Forum - Alternative Living https://projectavalon.net/forum4/ Skateboarding at 91 https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?131628-Skateboarding-at-91&goto=newpost Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:26:44 GMT * *Skateboarding at 91:* 5VHEEQ9G-G0 Lloyd Kahn didn’t start skateboarding until he was 65. Now, at 91, he still skates, paddleboards, gardens,...
  • Skateboarding at 91:

Lloyd Kahn didn’t start skateboarding until he was 65. Now, at 91, he still skates, paddleboards, gardens, builds, and moves through each day with the energy level of a teenager. But Lloyd’s unconventional life didn’t start that way. After graduating from Stanford, he followed a traditional path into the family insurance business — until a month-long hitchhiking trip across the country helped convince him to come home, quit his job, and build a life on his own terms. In this video, Lloyd walks us through the habits and philosophy that have shaped that life — from the movement stations built into his home to the food he eats, and the willingness to keep trying new things. Lloyd shows what can happen when you stay engaged with life, keep moving, surround yourself with people, and refuse to let age decide what you’re capable of…
lloydkahn.substack.com
Shelter: 40th Anniversary Edition (The Shelter Library of Building Books)
The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building & Gardening

At 80 years old, Lloyd Kahn is an icon of alternative housing. In the seventies he was a poster child of the geodesic dome (he published Domebook One and Two and he and his dome home were featured in Life magazine).

He got his start in publishing when Stewart Brand made him the shelter editor for the Whole Earth Catalog. The book that put him on the map as a publisher was “Shelter”, an international survey of alternative housing that he continues to sell over 4 decades later.

Kahn’s enthusiasm for shelter extends to “building every place I’ve ever lived”, including his current home which started as a dome and is now a more traditional shelter capped by a 30-foot-tall hexagonal tower (the only remnant of the dome).

His home is only a small part of his half-acre homestead where he and his wife Lesley Creed believe in doing things for yourself, when possible. Besides tending the organic gardens (and dozens of free-range chickens), Creed is a natural dyer, quilter, sourdough bread-maker and believer in the “value of actually working, not just trying to figure out how not to work”.

On our visit to the homestead, Kahn showed us his wild-caught pigeons, his seaweed harvest, well-fermented sauerkraut, home-cured olives, oatmeal grinder and workshop (where he still keeps his father’s “nuts and bolts box”). We caught Creed baking her sourdough bread (from her kitchen-harvested starter) and drying “bread seed” poppies.

Years ago the couple were pushing the boundaries of self-sufficiency to include goats and harvests of wheat, but Kahn found his limits. “With self-sufficiency you never get there, you never become self-sufficient. I mean we tried back in the seventies. We had goats and chickens and bees and I was trying to raise grain. Pretty soon I realized that if I want to raise enough wheat for the bread for a year here, it’s better left to a specialist, like I can’t be my own dentist. So you do, it’s a direction self-sufficiency. You do what you can do as much of it as you can.”
At 89, Lloyd Kahn has been building his own homes for over six decades, crafting spaces that include a few domes, at least one tower, and plenty of hand-split shingles. He's documented his builds, as well as the makeshift homes of thousands of alternative builders all over the US and the world, with whom he manages to keep in touch one way or another.

Back in 1971, Lloyd purchased his current half-acre homestead in Bolinas, California, for $6,000, with permits costing just $200, and he made use of salvaged and recycled materials—a feat he acknowledges would be challenging to replicate today. Despite modern builders' hurdles, Kahn has advice and inspiration for anyone hoping to follow in his footsteps.

Kahn's impact on the world of alternative building and self-sufficiency extends beyond his personal projects. Through his books, like Shelter (1973) and later works from Shelter Publications, he has documented and shared the journeys of owner-builders who, like him, have crafted unique and sustainable homes, often from unconventional materials.

Known for his role as the former Shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and as a pioneer of the green building movement, Kahn has inspired generations to embrace D.I.Y. architecture, from domes to driftwood shacks to recycled-timber cabins.

By sharing his own path to self-sufficiency and those of other unconventional builders, Kahn remains a guiding force for the new wave of back-to-the-landers and even the Silicon Valley innovators looking for alternatives to mainstream living.

Last year, Kahn lost his long-time partner in homesteading and wife, Lesley Creed, who shared his vision and helped shape their self-sufficient lifestyle. Her spirit and influence are still deeply felt on the Bolinas homestead, where her contributions remain woven into the fabric of their lives’ work.

After 5,762 posts and over 13K comments, Lloyd announced in his blog on May 18, 2024, that he was switching his blog over to Substack, where he's titled his ever-rolling enterprise "Live from California." He defines what he will cover there as follows: "Building, gardening, adventures, travel, people, surfing, skateboarding, fitness, aging, art, architecture, Baja, music, books, tiny homes, rolling homes, the natural world."

Lloyd will turn 90 in April and plans to still be skateboarding and road-tripping in his Tacoma 4x4 truck.
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