Discovering Eden’s Dharmaland

It was Eden Ahbez all along. The eccentric old man I had known for years only as Ahbe was a music legend and I only discovered this after he died in 1995. Initially, I was annoyed that Ahbe never shared any of his amazing history with me but things were as he wanted. I came to feel that my lack of knowledge of his celebrity made our relationship more real. Had I known of his past I would have undoubtedly interacted with him differently.

A great deal has been written about Eden Ahbez. With a single search, you can enter that deep rabbit hole and a book is soon to be published. He wrote the song “Nature Boy.” After Nat King Cole recorded his tune in 1948, it went to the top of the charts. This catapulted his unique experience.

When I became the town historian some years ago, the “History Hunter” in me required a more thorough investigation into the life of Eden in Big Tujunga Canyon. The inquiry commenced with a collection of photographs. In addition to Eden with Frank Sinatra, Brian Wilson, Nat King Cole, Hank Williams and others were solo images in a natural environment that looked familiar.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Shirley Neuenswander at Bolton Hall Museum. She served as a docent for many years and was a long-time resident of this community. She had visited Eden at his home-made shack way back when and did her best to describe where that was. I then reviewed satellite images of Big Tujunga Canyon, a bit past the baseball fields, the area Shirley identified.

With images in hand, I called an old friend to join me for a search in the field. Engineer Joe had been very close to Abhe. For many years, he served as his recording engineer at Salty Dog Studios in Van Nuys and they had an enduring friendship. When Eden passed, Joe inherited some of his belongings, including many photographs.

We parked in Big T near the search area and walked into the landscape. I instantly felt a compatibility with Ahbe’s aura there, and I said so. As we looked about, we saw an unusual object and approached. Before us was something that looked like a cement beehive: four feet high with a rounded top. On one side was two doors – one below to stoke a fire and one above for cooking. Here was an old oven in the middle of this field. Joe mumbled, “That looks familiar.”

After searching through Abhe’s photos, Joe discovered numerous images of Eden at the oven some 70 years ago. He was sitting on it, standing next to it and some were with his dog. I was able to confirm that other photos of Eden were taken near this spot by matching the mountains in the background.

The Eden’s Oven fun was just getting started. Months later, I received a call regarding the Swedish exotica band Ixtahuele. They would be traveling from the foggy harbor town of Gothenburg, Sweden to Los Angeles to record songs written by Ahbez – songs that Eden himself had never been able to record but had saved. These songs were discovered by a researcher in New York who connected with Ixtahuele, and the recording sessions were on. 

When here, the band wanted to visit the place where Eden had lived and written some of his music. Engineer Joe and I led members of the band, Brian Chidester, the researcher, a living relative of Ahbe and a local who knew him, to Eden’s Oven. Some instruments came out and an impromptu performance of some “Nature Boy” music filled the air.

Ixtahuele went on to record what could have been Eden Ahbez’s second album. Brian shared with me that Eden called his home in Big Tujunga Canyon “Dharmaland,” which is the name of the new album.