Joaquin Miller Home

Miller built the stone funeral pyre on the hill north of here in 1898 for his own cremation, and it was never used for that. He died in February 1913, his body was cremated elsewhere, and that spring his ashes were burned a second time on the pyre while a Bohemian Club chorus sang. The Abbey sheltered more than the poet. From 1894 Yone Noguchi, a young Japanese writer, lived here four years as an unpaid laborer working for room and board, published his first book, and later looked back on them as his hardest years in America.

What the plaque says

Joaquin Miller, "Poet of the Sierras," resided on these acres, named by him "The Hights," from 1886 to 1913. In this building, known as The Abbey, he wrote "Columbus" and other poems. The surrounding trees were planted by him and he personally built, on the eminence to the north, the funeral pyre and the monuments dedicated to Moses, General John C. Fremont and Robert Browning. "The Hights" was purchased by the City of Oakland in 1919. Tablet erected by the Historical Landmarks Committee, Native Sons of the Golden West, September 9, 1928.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Woods National Monument — 21 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Muir Beach Overlook — 22 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.

More markers nearby

• Site of Blossom Rock Navigation Trees — 1.0 mi
• Peralta Hacienda Site — 2.1 mi
• Mills Hall — 2.2 mi
• Rainbow Trout Species Identified — 2.7 mi