Ken Kern

Ken Kern (1927 — 1986, near North Fork, CA) was an American writer and owner-builder whose books became foundational texts of the back-to-the-land movement. A graduate of architecture school (institution unidentified), he homesteaded first near Oakhurst and later near North Fork in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, where he practiced and documented the self-construction philosophy he preached.

Publications

Kern’s most influential work was The Owner-Built Home (1972), a comprehensive guide to designing and building one’s own house without professional contractors. The book emphasized low-cost, locally sourced materials and practical building science, sharing the DIY ethos of Steve Baer‘s Dome Cookbook. Stewart Brand reviewed both works in the Whole Earth Catalog, placing them side by side as manuals for self-determined shelter.

Kern wrote prolifically on related subjects:

• The Owner-Built Homestead (1974, with Barbara Kern) — which includes sections on passive solar pit greenhouses
• Earth Sheltered Owner-Built Home
• Stone Masonry
• Masonry Stove
• The Healthy House (1978)

The books collectively argued that ordinary people could build sound, energy-efficient homes using their own labor and locally available materials — a position that aligned Kern with the broader owner-builder and appropriate technology movements of the 1970s.

Death

Kern was killed in 1986 when an experimental earth-sheltered concrete dome he was constructing collapsed during a rainstorm. The accident underscored both the ambition and the real risks of the self-building practice he championed. He was working on his North Fork homestead at the time.

See also

• Steve Baer
• Dome Cookbook
• Whole Earth Catalog
• Sim Van der Ryn — fellow figure of the 1970s owner-builder and ecological design movement