Wheels & Water Book Underway/Channeling Dick Zanuck

Our next book (on nomadic living in the 21st century) is underway. The last few days I layed out 4 pages. It really feels good. It”s clicking, from the git-go (you never know until you start).

   If you’ve got great photos and /or stories of nomadic living in these challenging times, send it to us. We’re rolling. The follow-up book to Tiny Homes.

   I’m writing this from the Harris Ranch, a beautiful hacienda-style Spanish hotel and restaurant about 2/3 of the way south of San Francisco on Hwy 5 to LA. I took off mid-day today driving my truck to LA, for the funeral Thursday of my college buddy Dick Zanuck.

   For almost 3 hours I cruised without the radio, a blended iced double-shot latte as well as light sativa cannabinoids to enable right brain function.


There are plants that grow steadily for weeks and then suddenly bolt. Same thing with concepts. You think about something or study a subject and one day, poom! You put it all together and enter another realm of consciousness.

   That’s what happened to me today, thinking about Zanuck and our stunts and adventures in the 50s. I never put it all together before, but when I finally did, it was rich. Fun. I’m going to write it up, but for now I’m at this wonderful inn in California’s San Joaquin valley. Nothing on  the web does the Harris Ranch justice. Beautifully built inn. Olympic size swimming pool (no chlorine smell) surrounded by sweet-smelling honeysuckle. Harris family has been here since the turn-of-the-century. The only way to understand how unique it is, is to stop by if you’re ever driving between SF and LA. And yes, there’s a smelly agri-biz style feedlot and it’s certainly the opposite of vegan consciousness, but still…

   Off mid-day mañana for Venice or Santa Monica. I excited to be heading into LA.

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

8 Responses to Wheels & Water Book Underway/Channeling Dick Zanuck

  1. Can't wait for the new book, having spent so many hours pawing over the images in shelter and homework especially the mobile architecture, campers, trucks, busses, caravans, canvas etc. This will be a goodie.

  2. Looking forward to your new book,been a fan since the first Shelter.
    Not sure if your interested in old fotos of one of the many gypsie
    campers I built back in the 60's.Born in Newport Beach back in the
    40's and surfed the SoCal coast before it turned into the cat box it
    is today.Been living in paradise here in Petrolia,on the Lost Coast
    and doing my sculpture…take care…Dennis Handy

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