SunRay's Temple
A Masterpiece in the California Foothills
This building, set in the Northern California hills, was a masterpiece — in design, execution, and use of natural materials. It was at Harbin Hot Springs, a few miles west of Middletown, California. It burned to the ground in the disastrous Valley Fire of 2015.
I’m so glad I was able to document it ten years ago. It was a stunning accomplishment not only in design, aesthetics, and construction, but in the use of natural materials. It's covered in detail, along with about 20 of SunRay’s other unique structures, in Builders of the Pacific Coast.
It was SunRay’s “sweet spot in time,” bringing together 20+ years’ experience in a spiraling form of earth, cedar, and energy. There was a sure touch to this building. Nothing was unresolved. It was finished to a “T.”
SunRay described it as a “big yurt.” It was about 50 × 70 feet, with a steel compression ring in the center, and a steel tension ring around the perimeter.The walls were timber-framed, with large (2-foot by 4-foot) straw bales as in-fill. The rafters were curved and laminated.
The bales were covered with SunRay’s special cob mix, composed of straw and fire clay. This is different from the typical cob formula, which has a lot of sand in it. Here there was no aggregate, just straw and clay: For this building, they had a truckload of mortar clay delivered to the site (in 100 lb. sacks).
“It’s all about fiber; if you want strength, you need fiber.”
The interior paneling was cedar. “It’s the fire,” he said, “the sun trapped in the wood — solar energy manifesting itself in wood.”
The wood was milled by a friend of SunRay’s in Washington, It’s installed sequentially, that is, in the same order as it grew in the trees.
The skylight, shown below, had individual windows that opened and closed — powered by an electric motor.
“There’s an ascending spiral of energy. It’s the way energy wants to move.”
“I listen to Mother Nature, she’s the boss.”
The earthen floor had radiant heating with hot water pipes underneath and had a surprising bounce when you walked on it. It was warm on cold days, perfect for yoga classes. It was all sand, clay and straw, no cement at all. Bare feet, por favor.
“ Life is motion. Life is movement. The lifeforce is always moving through us.“
SunRay passed away in 2023, but his spirit is still with us and in the multiple and magical buildings he left behind — buildings that brought joy to so many people.
There’s never been a builder like him. He was a delight and I was just one of the many people who loved him.
Thanks for sharing this. As a person who was in the interior design/architecture world for most of my ‘career’ this “architecture” speaks so loudly of California and especially NoCA.
It’s interesting that this should pop up. I was just talking with a friend who lives in Napa about Harbin Hot Springs and said we should go there.
Since the early 70’s when I was in college in Santa Cruz I had heard about Harbin Hot Springs. A couple of my friends from Santa Cruz who now live up in Sebastopol were regular visitors and campers at Harbin. Even their now adult children go there!
Sadly I was never there when this building existed. Was it the main building at Harbin or one of the ‘auxiliary’ buildings? They are slowly rebuilding Harbin, but the new buildings have no resemblance to this magnificent masterpiece of beauty and engineering.
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Here is my website; www.wanderlustconsulting.com this is how I sell my book;
TRAIL BLAZING THE UNKNOWN, Berkeley 2025.
Hey, lets go for a bikeride on the GG bridge and swap some tales.
yours in friendship
Leo