This "Court of the Mysteries" at 519 Fair Ave. was designed by Kenneth Kitchen, who came to Santa Cruz in 1934 with his partner and elder brother, Raymond. Both built their homes near the edge of town, where only a dozen houses stood on the 12-block stretch of Fair. (Raymond's home, converted to industrial use, still stands at 1211 Fair Ave.) Kenneth was a bricklayer, Raymond was a mason, and both exotic homes showed clients their individual craft at its most unfettered. Professional craftsmen have stood in awe at Kenneth's curving brickwork and Raymond's bulbous granite domes.
Another feature of their construction is inlaid mosaics of abalone shells -- whole or in shards. This unusual mother-of-pearl feature was from the local abalone processing plant, whose waste product was piles of abalone shells. Other architects, sculptors and ornamental cement workers used this abalone in their work as a feature of Santa Cruz architecture. Yet none achieved the level of sophistication found in the Kitchen brothers' mosaics.
Kenneth, a student of Eastern philosophy, originally lived in a house at the south end of his property, and in 1935 built a molded concrete, brickwork and abalone fence around the site for his yoga temple. The gate arch has four square-tapered minarets, with windows in each shaft once bearing opaque, onyx- grained glass, which were picturesque when lit.