LAGUNITAS, California - To find David Lee Hoffman's front door, take a right at the bell tower and head past the moat. Step - gingerly - through the stone tunnel, then follow the brick steps up to the Worm Palace and the breathtaking view of the Solar Power Shower Tower.

You can't miss it.

For the last 40 years, Mr. Hoffman, 67, an entrepreneur who specializes in rare aged tea leaves, has been building a Chinese- and Tibetan-inspired compound on a steep hill in this unincorporated hippie holdover in western Marin County where the general store has a community piano and sells clothing "made with peace and love."

The village has long prided itself on its pristine beauty and live-and-let-live attitude. But that was before the bitter dispute that pitted Mr. Hoffman, with his unconventional techniques for living in what he calls a sustainable way, against county code enforcers whose demands for permits he has repeatedly ignored.

The case, which is now in the hands of a state administrative judge, has riven his neighbors in the wooded glen they share. Mr. Hoffman may be the ultimate do-it-yourselfer. But the county has issues with the 30 or so structures he has built over the years.

Chief among its concerns is his method of disposing and recycling waste. It is called vermicomposting, in which colonies of worms, micro-organisms and carbon-rich leaves turn waste into humus. Water from the shower and kitchen sink flow into the upper moat, along with food scraps digested in Mr. Hoffman's Taj Mahal for worms. The resulting "gray water" passes through filters before being piped into the garden to nurture Peruvian potatoes, French sorrel and other vegetables.

Mr. Hoffman and his wife, Ratchanee Chaikamwung, who is known as Bee and is from Thailand, wash dishes with wood ash and oyster shells. In place of a toilet, they use self-contained chambers with a worm-composting system. Compost privies are not allowed in Marin County.

The possibility of the moats overflowing into a nearby salmon creek is another concern. "We have given David notice many times about requiring construction permits," said Debbi Poiani, the county's senior code-enforcement specialist, but "he's just continued on his merry way."

Mr. Hoffman's pursuit of artisanal tea growers in China was the subject of a 2007 documentary, "All in This Tea," by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht. Complete with a cave for aging Pu-erh leaves and a tea house, Mr. Hoffman's compound, which he calls the Last Resort, is part Himalayan kingdom, part junkyard.

"I wanted to show that there are distinctive nonpolluting ways to live on the planet," Mr. Hoffman explained. The county remains unconvinced: it gave the couple notice to "cease occupancy" until an approved septic system is installed and the buildings, walls and moats are brought up to code. Mr. Hoffman also faces roughly $200,000 in fines for building without permits and for running the Phoenix Collection, his latest tea business, on the premises.

He has supporters. Mr. Hoffman "helps to put Marin on the map as a place of unique creativity and originality," a neighbor argued in a letter to the county.

Mr. Hoffman was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. He spent a decade backpacking through Asia before settling in Marin in 1973. Before switching to tea, he started a business based on a process he invented for cleaning ancient textiles using sound vibrations.

To build the tea house roof, Mr. Hoffman recruited former Cirque du Soleil performers to teach him how to suspend safely in midair.

"I did what I felt was right," he said of his creation. He added, "My love of the planet is greater than my fear of the law."

The New York Times

(China Daily 05/13/2012 page10)