COURT OF MYSTERIES: COSMOLOGICAL CREATION OR BORED BRICK MASON?
When we think of 1940’s America we think of World War II and Big Band music, not yoga and Eastern spiritualism–that appear to belong to the”hippie movement” of the 1960s and beyond. Yet in the late 1930s or early 1940s, a Santa Cruz brick mason called Kenneth Kitchen constructed a love-letter that was red-brick into cosmology and folklore. Using symbols from planets into inlaid abalone, and pyramids, stars, obelisks, he built an archway called Prophecy’s Gate.
The Gate of Prophecy has held speculation even empty. The exterior contains symbols that are hidden, and the triangle on the gate is said to align prior to a disaster with the chimney right. Rumor has it that the structure was built by him only by the light of the moon at night.
SURREAL ESTATE
Just Kitchen abandoned his magnum opus never to be seen or heard from again. The 1990s changed hands a couple of times but abandoned the property, hosting other temps and just vandals. The temple in 519 Fair Avenue has been known as the Court of Mysteries, the Unorthodox Chapel, and Surreal Estate.
Morton and Harr purchased the property in 2016 and have built a house separate from the”Yogi Temple,” as they call it. After looking at it they have been stewarding and restoring this historical landmark, purchased one year.
“My husband was attracted to the property,” Morton says, though it had been boarded up on their initial trip. They came back a year later when there was a realtor able to let them. Morton had her reservations about the property and the feeling that was bound to come from this building that is spooky.
“If I walk in that building, and there is a weird or negative manner. I am not going to be able to sage that away,” she told her husband,” but I’d try for you.”
But, any reservations she’d tucked away vanished when the sunshine flooded in through the doors that were opened.
“The minute I saw the interior of the building, I thought, it’s this terrific positive energy to it,” Morton says. “The attention to detail in the design on the interior is simply inspiring,” and others”feel good when they are on that land.” Morton thinks it may even be a vortex: a place of concentrated spiritual energy. On the side, the energy is in cases like this.
KISMET CONNECTION
Upon further investigation, it turned out a private reason was.
About this oddity was constructed by Toilet, two weeks the couple was given a selection of theories and stories, though no certainties. One theory was that he’d come to help his brother, Raymond with some building work in the region.
The Kitchen brothers did not get along. Raymond told Kenneth that he and his anger problem required to”Go find some peace,” Morton says, so Kenneth did just that. He went into the Self Realization Fellowship Center (SRFC) at Los Angeles and heard teachings of the renowned yogi, Yogananda Paramahansa, before returning to Santa Cruz to reside in a little shack on his property. He raised goats while he constructed his masterpiece to market dairy products.
The couple realized because his brother was a monk in the SRFC that Harr was attracted to the property. “Doug grew up seeing these buildings,” Morton says. “We believed it was a true kismet thing.”
Learn More: DID SPUTNIK REALLY CATCH AMERICA OFF-GUARD?
One asserts that Kitchen was during World War I and developed his affinity for Occult and Eastern philosophies. Another alleges that during World War II he constructed a device in his garden that could stop submarines.
Morton favors the narrative about Kitchen studying for a yogi; the one where he”felt at peace for the first time in his life. You can feel it when you are on that land.”
As it had been for the builder, the recovery of the space of the couple appears to have been as much of a labor of love. Morton has documented a lot of the procedure in a blog named The Red Brick Castle that covers the first detailed work of restoring a beloved landmark into the unexpected find of classic tiles buried beneath the temple.
Close-up of this mother of pearl inlaid in the brick. /CC Mark Nickleby through Flickr
They look forward to opening it, although the temple will be the couple’s studio area. Harr and Morton are optimistic Mysteries’ Court will be prepared for a Haunted Courtyard occasion this Halloween.
Something tells us the stars.
Facts Check: Uber Fake
