I've seen photos of the Hubbel compund before but didn't realize that it had been alomst totally burned by the fires in California in 2003.  This is a cool article about how the family came together to rebuild.. and how they're in the process of making their home a national historical site.

From the LA TIMES

Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times

The charred trunk of a tree frames one of the eight structures designed by architect James Hubbell. The San Diego County fires of 2003 gutted four of the Hobbit-like buildings that Anne and James Hubbell have since restored on their 45 acres in Wynola, Calif.

Flames took a landmark home, but not one artist’s will to rebuild it.

By Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 6, 2007

WYNOLA, CALIF. — BEFORE James and Anne Hubbell's home was reborn this year, before it caught fire in 2003, even before its first indoor kitchen was built in the early 1960s, the place looked different from other houses. Like a hobbit's retreat, perhaps, or an oversized set of shells from some distant sea bottom.

Its materials were raw, its contours irregular and organically curved — the designer wanted it to look as if it had grown out of the hilltop. But to really understand the place, you had to hear the story.

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Rebuilding the Hubbell Home

It went this way: In 1958, James Hubbell, an artist and artisan, and Anne Hubbell, a teacher and musician, decided to build their dream house in the backcountry of San Diego County, beginning with nearly nothing. They were in their 20s and James was working for Sim Bruce Richards, an architect and follower of Frank Lloyd Wright who relied on Hubbell for ironwork, stained-glass windows, mosaic tile works and fanciful sculptures.

The Hubbells decided that they would build their own place the same way, on a 10-acre ridge studded with oak, manzanita and granite boulders, the ground thick with chaparral. For the land they paid $3,500.

They built a room or two at a time, letting the lay of the trees and rocks dictate their plans, adding as new sons arrived and the needs of Hubbell's art studio arose. Over time the couple also added land, boosting the site to about 45 acres as Hubbell furthered his craft.

"Without the buildings as a way of trying out things," he says, "I probably wouldn't have evolved the same way."

Eventually the household grew to include four sons and a compound of eight buildings, loosely circled like frontier wagons around a hilltop pool. While Hubbell won steadily larger commissions from clients worldwide, his home became an architectural celebrity, cited in the American Institute of Architects' guide to significant structures in San Diego County.

Then came Chapter Two: a sky filled with smoke and flames.

This was the great Cedar fire of late 2003, which blackened 300,000 acres, destroyed more than 2,200 homes and killed 15 people. The Hubbells, who had been traveling in New York, saw the smoke from their landing plane. In a day and a half as the flames advanced, they grabbed what they could and fled.

Read the rest of the article at the LA TIMES