{"id":101328,"date":"2025-12-19T16:04:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/101328\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T16:04:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:04:13","slug":"inside-californias-secret-artist-retreat-on-a-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/101328\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside California\u2019s Secret Artist Retreat on a Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"

At a book launch party, I was telling a friend about Dorland Mountain Arts<\/a>, the longest-running year-round artist residency in Southern California. Another author overheard and playfully shushed me. Then, more seriously, she leaned in: \u201cWe don\u2019t want them to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Located on the northern end of the Palomar range, with sweeping views of the Temecula Valley, Dorland\u2019s 10 acres sit on a 300-acre nature preserve. Despite the residency\u2019s lengthy history, Dorland has remained relatively unknown\u2014and improbably, it was resurrected after near destruction.<\/p>\n

I stumbled on Dorland in 2024, when I saw an Instagram post about the residency. Desperate for space and solitude to work on my novel, I applied and was accepted. I drove up the mountain, about 100 miles southeast of my home in Los Angeles, and felt instantly transported. Since then, I\u2019ve stayed five more times\u2014my shortest visit a week, my longest a month\u2014in all five of the private cottages, each with a kitchen, a workspace, and a porch and two with a baby grand piano. Most of my time has been spent alone, reading, writing, and taking long walks on the trails. Though solitude is the ethos, I\u2019ve also made lasting friendships.<\/p>\n

This article appears in Issue 34 of Alta Journal.
SUBSCRIBE<\/a><\/p>\n

From the mountain, Temecula\u2019s sprawl\u2014beige tract homes, Trump flags, an Old Town with biker bars\u2014feels distant. Up on the mountain, the land still thrums with the presence of the Pechanga Band of Indians, whose ancestors lived in the valley for at least 10,000 years. Temeku, the Luise\u00f1o name for the area, roughly means \u201cthe place where the sun breaks through the mist.\u201d And the first thing that struck me at Dorland was the sheer breadth of the sky. In the mornings, hot-air balloons drift in the distance above the Temecula Valley wineries, as if in a fairy tale. Sweeping sunsets commandeer the valley at dusk. As night falls, the abundance of stars and bright planets high above the jeweled lights of homes and businesses is otherworldly.<\/p>\n

There are better-known residencies in the country\u2014Yaddo<\/a> in Saratoga Springs, New York, say, or MacDowell<\/a> in Peterborough, New Hampshire, both of which are idyllic, supportive environments with full-time kitchen staff who have served generations of artists. Dorland is their funky cousin: unpretentious, approachable, and more fun to talk to. Rather than peering over your shoulder to see if anyone more important is around, Dorland makes eye contact.<\/p>\n

\"dorlandPhilip Cheung<\/p>\n

Artist Janice Cipriani-Willis, Dorland\u2019s executive director, takes an idyll on the property\u2019s Lake Tica\u00f1u.<\/p>\n

BIRTH AND REBIRTH<\/p>\n

The reason for that begins with the founders. Dorland\u2019s origins trace to the 1930s, when the internationally accomplished concert pianist Ellen Babcock Dorland and her husband, Robert, homesteaded 10 acres on the mountain. With the help of friends, they constructed rustic buildings\u2014without electricity\u2014and they called the compound Rancho Tica\u00f1u. Ellen admired MacDowell but wanted to retain the rancho\u2019s inimitability. She opened the place to artists and students, who fell under the spell of the live oaks and Ellen\u2019s philosophy: \u201cSimplify, simplify, simplify!\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1974, Ellen\u2019s friend and collaborator Barbara Horton, a ballet teacher, author, and pioneering environmental activist, worked with the Nature Conservancy to secure the 300 acres as a preserve. By 1979, an artist residency had been formally established. Cottages remained off-grid, lit by kerosene and propane lamps. Privacy was paramount; residents left notes to one another in postboxes. A brochure at the time warned, \u201cDorland Mountain Colony is not for every artist,\u201d yet many thrived in its \u201cprimitive working retreat,\u201d among them renowned poet May Swenson<\/a> and, later, novelist Alice Sebold.<\/p>\n

The first resident, poet David Trinidad<\/a>, arrived in 1979 while recovering from a car accident that had killed his best friend, fellow poet Rachel Sherwood. \u201cI hobble around on one crutch \/ afraid of encountering rattlesnakes \/ or bobcats on the dirt paths,\u201d he wrote in \u201cMoonlight in Temecula.\u201d His typewritten acceptance letter, scribbled over and signed by Horton, advised him to bring binoculars, a magnifying glass, even a sketch pad.<\/p>\n

Trinidad describes Ellen as formidable and patrician. \u201cWhen I first arrived,\u201d the poet Roberta Swann concurs by email, \u201cI observed Ellen from afar flinging the walking stick around. After a week, I realized she was flipping aside the rattlesnakes that were everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multidisciplinary artist Gilah Yelin Hirsh credits her significant time at Dorland in the \u201980s with sparking her lifelong exploration of the connections between art, science, and spirituality. Ellen visited Hirsh regularly in her cottage to critique her work. Hirsh often wandered the grounds at night, and Ellen told her that she had \u201ceyes in the soles\u201d of her feet.<\/p>\n

Ellen, who\u2019d lived at Dorland for 50 years, spent the greater part of her final months beneath an oak, sunlight sprinkling her wheelchair. She died in 1986, at 98 years old. Horton remained a vital presence until her own passing in 2003, at 86. <\/p>\n

The next year, disaster struck when the Eagle Fire scorched 9,000 acres along Highway 79 and decimated Dorland, destroying hundreds of antiques and manuscripts, as well as Ellen\u2019s grand piano once played by Rachmaninoff. Dorland\u2019s existence seemed over. Yet through communal effort\u2014and the introduction of modest fees\u2014it was brought back to life.<\/p>\n

\"dorlandPhilip Cheung<\/p>\n

Artist in residence Robert Willis, 102, carves a wooden ship. Known as the \u201cheart of Dorland,\u201d he\u2019s been there since 1992.<\/p>\n

A key figure in its survival was artist Robert Willis, who had arrived in 1992. After the fire, he lived in his van with his dog on the charred land for four years, guarding against looters. Eventually, new cottages\u2014prefab houses, this time with electricity\u2014were built. Now 102, Willis is celebrated as the \u201cheart of Dorland,\u201d still living on-site with his wife, fellow painter Janice Cipriani-Willis, the residency\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n

Though rebuilt, Dorland retains its spirit: minimalist, survivalist, irreverent. Its address\u2014P.O. Box 6, Temecula, California\u2014has remained unchanged since the 1930s. Its nonprofit board, led by Horton\u2019s son, Curtis, has kept residencies affordable and open to as many artists as possible, many of whom return again and again. Novelist Michelle Huneven recalls her 1987 stay as \u201crustic and dusty and romantic,\u201d with Aladdin lamps for light and chores to share. Once, when she spotted a black widow spider, the caretaker gently released it outside. \u201cI haven\u2019t killed a black widow since,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

At Dorland, the past is always close. The property\u2019s original adobe gathering place, legend says, was completed only after Pechanga Band visitors taught Robert Dorland how to mix clay properly. On my most recent stay, I sat with composer Bruce Trinkley at Sunset Point, where residents often gather. He pointed out the twisted harp of Ellen\u2019s piano, charred in the fire, still half hidden in the chaparral.\u2022<\/p>\n

Related Stories\"Headshot<\/p>\n

The author of three novels and two story collections, Victoria Patterson lives with her family in South Pasadena and teaches fiction in Antioch University\u2019s master of fine arts program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a book launch party, I was telling a friend about Dorland Mountain Arts, the longest-running year-round artist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[54475,55205,55196,55209,55221,55202,7,55215,9,55213,8,55206,55199,55195,55214,55204,55200,55220,55210,55219,55203,55201,55208,55216,55198,55197,55218,55212,55207,55217,55211],"class_list":["post-101328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-alta-journal-issue-34","tag-artist-cottages-temecula","tag-artist-residency-california","tag-artist-residency-wildfire-recovery","tag-artist-retreat-fire-recovery","tag-barbara-horton","tag-california","tag-california-artist-retreat","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-nature-preserve-residency","tag-california-news","tag-creative-retreats-california","tag-dorland-history","tag-dorland-mountain-arts","tag-dorland-mountain-arts-residency","tag-eagle-fire-2004","tag-ellen-babcock-dorland","tag-ellen-babcock-dorland-history","tag-macdowell-comparison","tag-off-grid-artist-residencies","tag-pechanga-band-history","tag-rancho-ticanu","tag-robert-willis-artist","tag-secret-creative-sanctuary","tag-southern-california-arts","tag-temecula-artist-retreat","tag-temecula-arts-colony","tag-temecula-valley-arts","tag-victoria-patterson-article","tag-writer-solitude-retreat","tag-yaddo-comparison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}