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Ken Kesey spent only about eight years near Palo Alto. In that time he wrote both of the novels he is known for, drew a circle of future famous writers and musicians around him and turned a log house in the redwoods into the headquarters of the Merry Pranksters. The years ended with a drug raid, a faked suicide and a jail term in San Mateo County.
Our page on Perry Lane covers his first home near Stanford, the drug studies at the Menlo Park VA hospital and the writing of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This page covers the rest: who he was before Stanford, what happened in La Honda and where life took him after. Sources include Wikipedia, a 2023 Alta Journal visit to the La Honda house and the San Francisco Chronicle's archive.
An Oregon wrestler
Kesey was born on September 17, 1935, in La Junta, Colorado. In 1946, when he was 10, his family moved to Springfield, Oregon. He graduated from Springfield High School in 1953.
He was a serious athlete. He wrestled in the 174-pound class in high school and college and finished second in his weight at the 1957 Pacific Coast intercollegiate meet. A shoulder injury ended any Olympic hopes. In 1956, while still at the University of Oregon, he eloped with Norma "Faye" Haxby. They stayed married until his death. He earned a degree in speech and communication in 1957.
Stanford and Perry Lane in brief
A Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for 1958 to 1959 brought him to Stanford's Creative Writing Center that fall. He and Faye settled on Perry Lane, beside the Stanford Golf Course, by about 1959. Wallace Stegner did not think much of him. Kesey wrote anyway.
Paid drug studies and a night job on a psychiatric ward at the Menlo Park VA hospital fed directly into One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, published in 1962. The book was a bestseller and gave him money for the first time. Our Perry Lane page has the full story. Our Menlo Park guide covers the town around the old lane.
The move to La Honda
In August 1963 the Perry Lane cottages were torn down. Kesey moved about 15 miles southwest, over the ridge, to La Honda in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most sources date the move to 1963. A 2023 Alta Journal article gives his La Honda years as 1962 to 1967, so treat the edges as approximate.
The Alta piece describes the house: a long cabin of pine and fir with red trim, set back from La Honda Road and reached by a wooden bridge over the creek, about a mile from the village's commercial strip. Kesey called it a "Viking lodge." He wrote in a shack by the creek, now gone. A ring of redwoods nearby became the Pranksters' gathering spot. Our La Honda guide covers the town today.
Sometimes a Great Notion
His second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, came out in 1964. It is a long, dense book about the Stampers, a stubborn Oregon logging family who refuse to honor a strike. It is set on a river in the Oregon woods, far from the Peninsula. The Alta writer contrasts the quiet creek behind the La Honda house with the "snorting and squalling" river of the novel.
The book's release also set up the most famous road trip of the decade. That summer Kesey and his friends drove a painted 1939 school bus named Furthur to New York, with Neal Cassady at the wheel, in part to mark the publication.
The Pranksters filmed much of the trip. The footage sat for decades as a sprawling home movie. It finally reached a wide audience in Magic Trip, a 2011 documentary by Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood cut from the Pranksters' own reels. UCLA's Film and Television Archive now holds a Ken Kesey collection. For Peninsula readers the point is simple: the trip that helped define the decade was planned in a cabin about half an hour's drive from downtown Palo Alto.
The Merry Pranksters at home
Back in La Honda the house became a commune of sorts. Friends lived on the property, filmed one another and painted surfaces in Day-Glo colors. The Alta visit found a painted piano and collages on the kitchen and pantry doors still in place decades later.
The scene drew visitors of every kind. Hells Angels came as guests to a 1965 party at the house that Tom Wolfe later described in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The story has been retold many times since. From late 1965 into 1966 the Pranksters staged the Acid Tests around the Bay Area, with a young band from Palo Alto playing. Our page on the Grateful Dead's Palo Alto roots follows the band. Our page on Palo Alto in the 1960s sets the scene.
Raids, a fake suicide and jail
The trouble started in April 1965. The San Francisco Chronicle's archive says 17 sheriff's deputies, a federal narcotics agent and a police dog raided the La Honda property and arrested Kesey and 13 others on marijuana charges.
The sequence that followed is told slightly differently in different places. This is the outline most sources share:
- January 17, 1966. Kesey is sentenced to six months in the San Mateo County jail, according to Wikipedia.
- Two nights later. Police arrest him again, with Prankster Carolyn Adams, on Stewart Brand's rooftop in San Francisco.
- Early 1966. He leaves his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka with a staged suicide note and flees to Mexico.
- About eight months later. He returns to California and is caught.
- 1967, by most accounts. He serves about five months, the Chronicle says. The Alta article places him at an experimental work camp.
Wikipedia places the county jail where he was sentenced in Redwood City. Our Redwood City guide covers that county seat.
Oregon and after
After his release Kesey moved back to the family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley. He lived there for the rest of his life. Later books include Demon Box (1986), a collection of essays and stories. The novel Sailor Song followed in 1992. He and Faye had three children, Jed, Zane and Shannon. His daughter Sunshine was born in 1966 to Carolyn Adams.
He died on November 10, 2001, in Eugene, of complications after surgery for a liver tumor. He was 66. He is buried on his farm next to his son Jed.
The La Honda house today
After Kesey left, the house sat largely abandoned, with squatters and old friends drifting through. A couple bought it in 1997 and Kesey visited with his wife and friends after the sale. Floods in 1998 damaged the siding. The owners restored the house and raised it out of the floodplain. It is a private home.
Good to know
- Do not look for the house, stop in front of it or trespass. Perry Lane is also a private residential street.
- The drive over Highway 84 from Woodside to La Honda is the easiest way to see the landscape Kesey wrote in.
- For books from and about these years, see our Palo Alto in books page.
Frequently asked questions
Where did Ken Kesey live near Palo Alto?
From about 1959 he lived on Perry Lane, a cottage enclave beside the Stanford golf course in what is now Menlo Park. After the cottages were torn down in August 1963 he moved to a log house on La Honda Road in La Honda. Both sites are private homes or streets today.
Why did Ken Kesey come to Stanford?
He won a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for 1958 to 1959 and enrolled at Stanford's Creative Writing Center that fall. He was a former college wrestler with a speech and communication degree from the University of Oregon.
When was Ken Kesey arrested in La Honda?
In April 1965 sheriff's deputies, a federal narcotics agent and a police dog raided his La Honda home. The San Francisco Chronicle's archive says Kesey and 13 others were arrested on marijuana charges. He was sentenced in January 1966 and later served about five months.
Did Ken Kesey really fake his death?
Yes. Facing a second marijuana charge in early 1966, he left his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka with a staged suicide note and fled to Mexico. Wikipedia says he came back about eight months later, was caught and served his sentence before moving home to Oregon.
Can you visit Ken Kesey's La Honda house?
No. It is a private home. Please do not look for it, stop in front of it or trespass. You can drive through La Honda on Highway 84 and stop at the businesses in the village instead.