Kurt's Diamond Sufi Ranch

The Diamond Sufi Ranch was located in Oakville, in the Napa Valley. It was owned by Bill Hamm, of the Hamm's Beer family, and Kurt leased the property for many years. The 3-bedroom main house on the property, pictured above with Kurt's psychedelic VW Bug in the circular driveway (under the 700-year old Valley Oak), was actually the caretaker's house. A much larger estate home had burned down long before Kurt took up residence. Other buildings remained on the property, which was in walking distance from the Napa River. A stable housed Misty Moonlight, the ranch horse, and the stable had one small living unit in it. An enclosed pool house was across the grove of timber bamboo (Phyllostachys bambusoides) at the rear of the main house, and it also contained a small, living unit. The same was true of the garage/barn, where artist Noble Richardson spent many hours painting. 

The configuration of places to live lent itself to communal life, and a number of people took up residence for periods of time. This resulted in big dinners, orchestrated by Kurt, of course, served around the kitchen table or on the back deck. And there were kids, too. At one time a pack of 4-year-old blonde toddlers ran the ranch.

The Diamond Sufi ranch became a gathering place for thinkers, artists and an odd assortment of healers, yogis, body workers, massage therapists, students and musicians. People were always dropping by, including notables like Alan Watts and Tibetan Buddhist Lamas, including Lama Chime of the Kagyu lineage, who renamed the ranch Samten Chöling.

During the summer, a Native American-style sweat lodge was built from bent bamboo and coverings; rocks would be heated during the night, and at sunrise placed in the sweat lodge and doused with water to produce hot steam. A quick dash to jump into the cool water of the indoor pool closed the pores opened by the heat of the sweat lodge. For more information and photos read more.

Kurt's youth and military service

Kurt grew up in Carmel, and graduated from Carmel High School. He was, by all accounts and available evidence, creative, popular and clearly good looking. To see more photographs and information about Kurt's early life, read more.

Unconventional Art History Teacher Fights Termination

In 1967, while an assistant professor at UCLA, Kurt was notified that his contract was not going to be renewed. Had it been renewed, he would have become a full, tenured professor. He was loved by his students, and as the article from the L.A. Times notes, "This rapport with students swelled one of his classes, a survey of 20th Century Art, from 75 students in the fall of 1965 when he started at UCLA to 450 students when he taught it last fall." He was wildly popular with students, but not with his Art Department chair. In comments, Kurt is quoted about two main areas of disagreement, "The first was the subject matter and the content of my courses...such as playing rock-and-roll and maybe even my choice of slides." He went on, "The other major area of concern was the methodology, the syllabus, specifically the unorthodox classes and bringing in outside speakers and for following methods other than the strict, didactic approach that usually makes art history so deadly dull."

Among the guests he invited to speak to his classes was Rock and Roller Lew Reed, just at the beginning of his career. Phil Spector dropped in, and Andy Warhol. And then there was the "book burning" art-piece on campus, and the art-event when Kurt led his students in throwing an old black and white television off the Santa Monica Pier. This is what Kurt meant by "unorthodox." UCLA just was not ready for Kurt, who in student letters to the Daily Bruin was deemed "a genius." And of course, he was.

He lost his appeal, despite the uproar of his devoted students.