Heyoon

Roman Mars:
This is 99% Invisible. I’m Roman Mars.

Alex Goldman:
Maybe the last time I went out there was 2005, and I was in the early stages of dating this lady. I went over to her house and she said, I just had this crazy dream where you and I were like walking through a field and then came upon a spaceship. And I was like, “Oh yeah, you wanna go there?” and she’s like, “What are you talking about?” I was like, “No that’s a place, we can go, it’s not far.” And when we finally saw this place she was just like overtaken with how magical it was to see this thing that just doesn’t seem real.

[WOMAN: WHY ARE YOU GUYS TAKING US OUT TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?]

[MAN: HEY! HEY, YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’RE GOING TO GO. IT’S A SECRET.]

Alex Goldman:
I was really lucky to grow up in Ann Arbor. We had great record stores and an art-house movie theater and, of course, Ann Arbor is the home of the University of Michigan. So there was a lot going on for a small town. But it was a small town and I was a misfit. And like a lot of young misfits in small towns, I was bored and disaffected and angry a lot.

Roman Mars:
That misfit is Alex Goldman. He’s a producer at the radio show “On The Media” and he now lives in New York City.

Alex Goldman:
I hated high school, I was a bad student, and most of my friends went to different schools. In fact, although I’ve gone by Alex my entire life, that’s actually my middle name. My first name is Michael. And for at least half of my high school career, my teachers and peers all called me Michael. It was like I walked around pretending to be a completely different person for most of my waking life. I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere and I desperately wanted to escape this oppressively small town that felt completely devoid of wonder. And then I found Heyoon…

[WOMAN: OKAY, WHERE ARE WE?]

[MAN: WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS.]

[WOMAN: I HOPE SOMEONE BROUGHT A FLASHLIGHT.]

[MAN: NAH, WE CAN’T BE USING FLASHLIGHTS. HERE, TAKE MY LIGHTER.]

Alex Goldman:
The only way you found out about Heyoon was if someone took you there. It was like there was this secret club of kids who knew about it. I got initiated when I was fifteen. You’d drive out in the middle of nowhere, deep in the country, and park alongside this dirt road.

[WOMAN: ALRIGHT, SO STEP ONE… WE’VE GOT TO GET OVER THAT FENCE.]

Alex Goldman:
There is this fence that you had to climb over and it had this sign on it.

[MAN: GUYS I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS.]

[MAN: OH, COME ON, MAN.]

Alex Goldman:
The sign read, “Turn back. This is private property you’re not welcome here for any reason. Please now. Turn back and leave in peace.” Turn back and leave in peace. It almost felt like a dare.

[WOMAN: TRUST ME. THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE.]

Alex Goldman:
Once you’re over the fence, you pass alongside a white farmhouse.

[MAN: (WHISPERS) THE GUY THAT OWNS THAT HOUSE IS CRAZY!]

[WOMAN: I HEARD A RUMOR THAT HE SHOT A KID FULL OF ROCK SALT FOR GETTING NEAR HIS HOUSE.]

[MAN: I HEARD HE’S GOT A PACK OF ATTACK DOG]

[WOMAN: I HEARD HE SKINNED KID ALIVE!]

[MAN: SHHHH!]

Alex Goldman:
A path behind the house led to this thin line of trees but once you make it through the trees you’re in this huge field. And there was something else there in the field, something man-made. Something really big.

[MAN: (WHISPERS) RIGHT UP HERE. RIGHT UP HERE.]

[MAN: OKAY. HERE’S WHAT WE’RE GOING TO DO. WHEN WE GET UP TO THAT CLEARING, EVERYBODY RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN-

[WOMAN: HOW FAR?]

[MAN: UNTIL YOU SEE IT… OK, READY? THREE TWO ONE. GO!]

[RUNNING SOUNDS]

[MAN: THERE IT IS.]

[WOMAN: WHOA. WELCOME TO HEYOON.]

[WOMAN: IT’S BEAUTIFUL!]

Alex Goldman:
The structure was made mostly of wood with a canopy of Teflon and nylon stretched over a metal frame. From the base, there were stairs leading up to a platform about ten feet off the ground, suspended over a boulder about the size of a Volkswagen bug. At the top of the stairs there were these two pieces of glass in the floor, and one night a friend stood underneath with a letter while I looked down from on top. There was an etching on one of those pieces of glass. It said, “The Heyoon Pavilion.”

[WOMAN: H-E-Y-O-O-N. HEYOON. THE HEYOON PAVILION.]

Alex Goldman:
There was other signage too, one sign that sort of welcomes you there.

[WOMAN: THIS PAVILION IS A WORK OF ART, DESIGNED AND CAREFULLY PUT TOGETHER FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS BY MANY WORKMEN AND ARTISANS. IF YOU BY SOME HAPPENSTANCE ARE NOW HERE IN THIS PLACE, PLEASE TAKE PLEASURE IN ITS SERENITY BUT PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB IT, NOR DEFACE ITS BEAUTY IN ANY WAY. ITS BEAUTY ALONE IS YOUR REWARD FOR MEANDERING HERE. FOR YOUR RESPECT, THE SPIRIT OF THE DESIGNER ARTIST WILL LEAVE YOU IN PEACE.]

Alex Goldman:
But then right next to that, there is this other sign

Roman Mars:
It said, and I’m quoting, “If you are here you shouldn’t be. This is a privately-owned farm off-limits to outsiders. You have crossed clearly marked KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING signs on fence lines and gates. Please. Now. Respect the owner’s privacy by leaving this place in peace. Thank you.”

[WOMAN: SOME OF THE NO TRESPASSING SIGNS MAY HAVE BACKFIRED A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE THERE IS THIS… I FEEL LIKE THERE’S A SORT OF CONTRARINESS TO TEENAGERS WHERE IT’S LIKE, “WELL IF THERE’S THAT MANY NO TRESPASSING SIGNS, THEN IT MUST BE AWESOME.”]

Alex Goldman:
I rounded up a few of my high school friends and talked to them about Heyoon. It seems like it’s still as entrenched in their minds as it has been in mine.

[MONTAGE OF FRIENDS SPEAKING]
IT WAS, I MEAN IT BLEW MY MIND THE FIRST TIME I SAW IT.

I WOULD BEST DESCRIBE HEYOON TO SOMEONE WHO’S NEVER SEEN IT…… IT’S BIG, MAYBE THE SIZE OF A SMALL HOUSE OR A HUT.

AND IT LOOKED LIKE A HOT AIR BALLOON.

LIKE A JELLYFISH.

A MUSHROOM

MUSHROOM-Y SORT OF?

GLOBE-LIKE

LIKE A TELESCOPE OBSERVATORY

A SPACESHIP

A ROCKET SHIP.

I MEAN WHEN YOU FIRST LOOK AT IT YOU KIND OF THINK, IT’S GOING TO TAKE OFF OR SOMETHING. IT LOOKS VERY ALIEN AND FOREIGN, SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT BIG FIELD.

THE PLACE DEFINITELY HAS A STONEHENGE FEEL TO IT.

Alex Goldman:
There were a number of myths about why Heyoon was there. That it was built to commemorate the owner’s dead daughter. That it was built along ley lines. That was created for a wedding ceremony. That it was designed for paganistic rituals, or for stargazing. The place was such an enigma. There’s no way you could have known it was out there if someone didn’t take you to it. The first person who found it had been lost to history. By the time I was taken there it was an oral tradition handed down from one group of teens to the next. Part of its power was that in being secret, it created a community. It bound people together. Appealing for an angry fifteen-year-old.

[IT WAS SECRET, SNEAKY, TEENAGERS ONLY, LIKE, KIDS VERSUS ADULTS, SECRET TIME.]

[HEYOON WAS MYSTERIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, AND PEACEFUL AND JUST KIND OF REASSURED YOU ABOUT ALL OF YOUR INNER TURMOIL…YOUR DEEPER QUESTIONS, I GUESS.]

[IT’S ALMOST LIKE IT WAS DESIGNED TO INSPIRE TEENAGERS IN THE LOCAL AREA TO COME OUT THERE AND HANG OUT AND DRINK BEER AND SMOKE POT AND, YOU KNOW, KIND OF CAPTURE THEIR IMAGINATION.]

Alex Goldman:
I probably went out there once every couple of months for the next four to five years. We’d go out there and drink, do drugs, sometimes just talk. And of course, it was always thrilling to bring new people out there, to indoctrinate them into our secret club. Plenty of romantic relationships started out there. The first time I made out with someone who’d become my girlfriend happened while we were sitting on Heyoon during a rainstorm. It was otherworldly and magical, it felt out of time and it felt like it was ours.

Roman Mars:
Going to visit Heyoon was the perfect mixture of danger and secrecy and awe to capture 15-year-old Alex’s imagination….. for the next decade and a half.

Alex Goldman:
Even after I moved away in 2001, I was fixated on trying to find out why it was there. So in 2009, I wrote a letter to the white farmhouse we always snuck past on our way to Heyoon asking them if they were the owners.

Roman Mars:
Alex got a letter back. They didn’t own Heyoon, their neighbors did. Rita and Peter Hayden.

Alex Goldman:
That’s when I realized that what we’ve been calling the Heyoon Pavilion for years, was actually the Hayden Pavilion. That Gaelic font made the D look kind of like a second O. And we’d only ever seen it in the middle of the night.

Roman Mars:
If the names Rita and Peter Hayden sound familiar, it’s probably because their nonprofit ‘The Mosaic Foundation’ has been underwriting public radio for decades.

[PUBLIC RADIO CLIP: …AND BY THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION OF RITA AND PETER HAYDEN BASED IN ANN ARBOR, HONORING THE LITERARY ARTS AND THE UNIVERSE OF GREAT IDEAS. BE WELL, DO GOOD WORK, AND KEEP IN TOUCH.]

Alex Goldman:
I sent the Haydens a letter, apologizing for my youthful indiscretions and asking them if I could interview them about Heyoon.

Roman Mars:
Peter Hayden wrote back, “So you’re one of the little sh*ts who invaded our privacy by visiting our pavilion when you were told many places along the way, not to be there.”

Alex Goldman:
This was in 2009, before I was a public radio producer. I was just a guy in New York who fixed computers and a guy who used to trespass on the Hayden’s property. The rest of his letter was friendly, but he wasn’t too keen on talking to me. But I couldn’t let it go that I communicated with the creator of Heyoon and that the mystery could be solved! It drove me bonkers. So in 2012, after working in public radio for a couple years, now I had a better excuse to try to talk to Hayden and I decided to try again.

Roman Mars:
Peter Hayden can be a hard man to reach. He doesn’t use email, he doesn’t always answer the phone, and he was reluctant to give an interview for fear of attracting even more people to Heyoon.

Alex Goldman:
But after a couple of phone calls and a few fax messages, he agreed to meet me for an interview about Heyoon, at Heyoon. It was like meeting the Wizard of Oz.

Peter Hayden: Are you Alex?

Alex Goldman: Yes I am.

Peter Hayden: How do you do?

Alex Goldman: Nice to meet you!

Peter Hayden: Nice to meet you. Let’s go back up there.

Alex Goldman: Okay, which fence you want to go to?

Peter Hayden: We’re going to the first gate, just south of the white residence.

Alex Goldman: Alright.

Peter Hayden: This will be something new for you, coming in legally!

Alex Goldman: Yeah, and during the day!

Peter Hayden: It’s been quite a journey, hasn’t it?

Alex Goldman: Yeah. It certainly has.

Peter Hayden: How you doing? I’m Peter.

Alex Goldman: Alex. Nice to meet you.

Peter Hayden: Nice to meet you too, Alex.

Alex Goldman: Thank you so much for agreeing to do this.

Peter Hayden: Yeah, I have mixed feelings about it as you can imagine.

Alex Goldman: Yeah, I bet.

Alex Goldman:
In my effort to try and respect the Hayden’s privacy, I offered to refer to the pavilion only as Heyoon and not use his name, but he told me from the beginning that he wasn’t interested in anonymity. He was interested in privacy.

Peter Hayden:
I don’t think that I want this to be anonymous. I want it to be with my name attached to it, but that doesn’t mean to say we have to violate our privacy. We don’t have to tell where it is, we don’t have to say whatever… I mean if you said Ann Arbor, that’s good enough. Most people would not know.

Alex Goldman:
I was actually going to be even less specific, I was going to say Southeastern Michigan to give people less of a sense of….

Peter Hayden:
That’s fine, they’ll know my name from our credit on NPR.

[NPR CIP: …AND THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION OF RITA AND PETER HAYDEN BASED IN ANN ARBOR. HONORING THE PASSION OF NPR JOURNALISTS ALL AROUND THE WORLD, WHOSE STORIES TAKE US THERE EVERY DAY.]

Peter Hayden:
As we always say, “based in Ann Arbor” that’s what it says. Always.

Alex Goldman:
Peter Hayden told me that Heyoon was designed by a friend of his, an artist and designer named Joseph Kinnebrew. Kinnebrew and his wife were visiting the Haydens one night in 1978 when a massive blizzard came through and snowed them in.

Peter Hayden:
We were trapped in our house down at the bottom of the hill for five days, just the four of us. But we got to know each other quite well during that period. I think Joe is nuts and I like being around him. I find him, you know…. the kind of person I’m not.

Alex Goldman:
The Haydens and the Kinnebrews got to be close. That spring, the Kinnebrews came back for a visit.

Peter Hayden:
And we went to a downtown restaurant. We got absolutely, soddingly drunk. We had planned… He said, “I’m going to build you a pavilion.” And I said,” Okay, we’ll do this.” By dusk, we decided we’d come out here to look at this field and the position where the pavilion was going to be… I had nothing, I didn’t have a flashlight, I didn’t have anything. Our wives were parked right here where we’re parked and they watch these two stumbling drunks walking across the field, and Joe said, “I can’t see you.” And I said, “Well what are we going to do?” He said, well… he said, “In order for me to see you I’ve gotta have a light!” And I said, “What’s that going to be?” He said, “Well. here’s a piece of the New York Times. You do a flare.” So we lit this thing. I mean, we could have set the whole field alight but we didn’t. And so, that was exactly the spot where I was standing with this burning newspaper. That was funny stuff to watch us working that night.

Alex Goldman:
And that’s how Peter Hayden & Joe Kinnebrew, drunk and running around with a burning newspaper, decided to build Heyoon. Joe said that if Peter paid for the parts and labor, he’d do the design for free. I found it kind of oddly reassuring that the creation of Heyoon came out of the same sort of drunken antics my friends and I would get into almost two decades later at the same spot. That you could trace its origin story back to a sleepover party. But on the other hand, Peter couldn’t give me any particular reason for its existence. It’s just there because it is, because it’s beautiful. Because it’s art.

Peter Hayden:
I was a professor of English at the University of Michigan for 24 – 5 years starting in the 1960s. And so I, you know, have a kind of an ascetic view of what art is. It teaches you steps by which wisdom is gained. And in that sense art is useless. It doesn’t have any practical impact and so for me, this pavilion was always sort of that. It was something that was a place for contemplation, a place for pleasure, for enjoyment for conviviality with people that I chose to be here.

Alex Goldman:
Peter’s relationship with Heyoon feels like an echo of the possessiveness, the secretiveness, the ownership that me and my friends all feel for it. The only difference is that Peter actually owns it. Like us, he feels protective of it. Unlike us, he’s actually responsible for it. Over the years, he’s had to clean up the messes left by drunk teens and even some damage left by vandals.

Peter Hayden:
Like you, Alex, or some sh*thead that came out here and actually did some damage that we had to repair that. They actually cut the covering. We know that there were parties out here… we had candles and things like that. Sometimes it looked like there may be and have been sort of religious things going on here. There may have been poetry readings and it was, you know, I think a hefty amount of sex. (laughs) I don’t think there were orgies out here, but I think that couples who come out here and find it very compelling to be part of nature out here and you know, be one with nature. Especially on full moons and stuff that was always a very… seemed to be an attractive time for people to be out here.

Alex Goldman:
I’m curious…. you know, I was talking to my friends about the signage that’s out front and the first sign, the sign that says you know, sort of “respect this and leave this in peace, congratulations this is your reward for finding this”

Peter Hayden:
No, it didn’t say congratulations. It didn’t welcome you that much, I don’t think… but anyways, please continue.

Alex Goldman:
Well, the reason I say that is because one of my friends said to me, “I kind of believe that they wanted us to go out there. They wanted us to find it, and that’s why there are so many signs daring us to visit it.”

Peter Hayden:
No, that’s absolutely fabricated. That’s wishful thinking on your part. Nothing like that of the sort we wanted. If I choose to utilize it, that’s my business, that’s my religious experience. It’s not a common temple for everyone to utilize.

Alex Goldman:
It’s funny you should put it that way, because that’s exactly how my friends and I all felt about it then, and still do now, even though we ourselves were trespassers. One of my friends who I talked to for the story Jason van Mater, put it this way:

Jason van Mater:
There were like, certain kids who would I would talk to and they’d say like, “Oh yeah, that pavilion out there. Like I took a six-pack out there, we got we got wasted out there the other night or whatever” and I’d feel a little bit hurt by that. Like, why are you just going out there to drink? You know, you’re just talking about your thirty pack of people who are out at the Pavilion? It’s sacrilegious, you know? That’s like my church. It’s like you’re sacrileging my church.

Alex Goldman:
When we found trash at Heyoon left over from other people, my friends and I would clean it up or at least try to minimize our impact on the place. But for Peter that doesn’t matter, we’re all just a bunch of interlopers.

Peter Hayden:
Did you go to Pioneer High School?

Alex Goldman:
I actually went to all three. I went to Pioneer, Community and Huron, in the course of my troubled high school….

Peter Hayden:
Presumably along the way there, at least you learned the English language, you were able to read things. Especially something that’s subtle like that, but I would challenge you to say that was an invitation, it was not an invitation. It was really meant to say, “Look here’s the fact: you’re here, you’ve come to this place. I don’t want you to do any damage and I don’t want to piss you off, so here’s what I’m telling you. Leave. Admire its beauty but leave, don’t stay here. Leave.” And I think that was the message that I want to be, I wouldn’t want them to… because you know, spending twenty minutes in your sock drawer as opposed to five minutes or two minutes in your sock drawer. It just kind of became kind of, polluted to me in some ways. When people, that I didn’t know, didn’t invite, had nothing to…..had no knowledge of, whose values and whose sense of aesthetics were not the same as mine. I felt it was a personal violation.

Alex Goldman:
Talking with Peter I can see how much he values privacy and having control over the stuff he owns. He hired a former cop to drive a decommissioned police car around his property. It’s got lights and sirens and a logo that says RP8 Security as in, Rita and Peter Hayden. He says it’s mostly to keep out hunters.

Peter Hayden:
What I say is, we don’t allow hunters, we allow a hunter who hunts this property and he’s entitled to take one buck a year. As many does as he wants.

Alex Goldman:
And when he did catch kids that were out there to sneak into Heyoon, he’d make them give their names and addresses and make them write letters of apology. He still has a lot of those letters. Yet for all of Peter’s possessiveness of Heyoon, he doesn’t actually do a lot with it.

Peter Hayden:
You know the place itself… is not meant to be used. For me anyway. In other words, it’s perfectly good being by itself not having any occupants.

Alex Goldman:
Peter hosts private wine tastings once or twice a year at Heyoon, and maybe he’ll wander over to it from his house from time to time but that’s pretty much it; and it doesn’t really matter. Peter’s the actual owner of Heyoon and he can do anything he wants with it. He can use it, he can not use it. He even talked to me about how he’s thought of tearing it down. And he can, it’s his prerogative.

Roman Mars:
The way Heyoon gets used or doesn’t get used is under total control of the Haydens. But when you think about design intent, what Heyoon was actually designed to do, there’s one other person for whom it might be fair game to weigh in. This guy-

Joseph Kinnebrew:
I’m so happy, in spite of Peter’s unhappiness about interlopers, that young people came in to sneak a peek.

Alex Goldman:
This, of course, is Joseph Kinnebrew, the designer of Heyoon. The guy that got drunk and set newspapers on fire with Peter Hayden back in the day. He left Michigan decades ago and never had any idea that Heyoon had become such an underground attraction. His take is somewhat different than Peter Hayden’s.

Joseph Kinnebrew:
I’m delighted. I’m actually delighted! How could I not feel something really good about what you did even though you weren’t supposed to? You were all quite naughty. But that’s quite alright! It’s one of those things that life should include. (laughs)

Alex Goldman:
Granted, Joseph Kinnebrew, unlike Peter Hayden, doesn’t have to deal with interlopers coming on his property doing God knows what under the cloak of darkness. But Kinnebrew says that it’s bigger than a question of property. It’s the impact that the pavilion has on the landscape, on the psyche of the people who come in contact with it through means legitimate or not. for Kinnebrew, Heyoon is out in the world.

Joseph Kinnebrew:
Contadina tomato paste used to have this wonderful thing they used to say: “Once they’re peeled, they’re packed.” Referring of course to the tomatoes. I feel to a certain degree the same thing about artwork. You know, once it’s done, it’s done. I’m gone. I’m out of the picture. It doesn’t even belong to me anymore. I’m not even sure that thing belongs to the Haydens. You see, possessing it has nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. I remember as a youngster sneaking off to look at something called Peabody’s Tomb, which was a mausoleum in a forbidden monastery that we all visited on occasion, about the same age you were. It was west of Chicago, where I grew up. And allegedly Peabody was in this glass coffin. These candles were lit every night and we’d sneak out there to see it. Here you are, you’re 33 years old for God’s sake, you’re still holding on to it. What a wonderful thing.

Alex Goldman:
Even though I’m sure it pisses Peter Hayden off to say this, I can’t help but feel like a part of Heyoon belongs to me. I think that other people I know have a similar feeling. There were a couple of people who refused to talk to me for this story because to them, to share Heyoon with the world, is to ruin Heyoon.

Roman Mars:
We found a photographer who had taken some pictures of Heyoon but when we asked him if we could post them to our website he replied with an emphatic “no.” He did not want the secret getting out on his watch.

Alex Goldman:
And I have to admit I understand where they’re coming from but on the other side of the coin, when I put out a call to friends on Facebook to see who would talk to me about Heyoon, some wrote, “What’s Heyoon?” And that gave me the same sense of exclusivity, of belonging, that I had when I was a teenager. And now, over the course of producing the story, I’ve actually gained a kind of buy-in from the grand arbiter of Heyoon himself. I’m no longer just a “little sh*t” to Peter Hayden.

Peter Hayden:
Alex, look, you’re a different person than you were then. Secondly, as you know, I’m a radio guy. I like voices and I like the “word pictures” that people can weave on the radio. You came credentialed because I hear your voice, I hear your name, Alex… and this morning I heard your name on the media again. What are you, associate producer?

Alex Goldman:
Yeah.

Peter Hayden:
Yeah well, I’m proud of you for doing that.

Alex Goldman:
I’m grateful that I ever got to see Heyoon. That I live in a world where Heyoon exists. But I’m also grateful that I live in a world where there are magnificent structures that are made without me in mind. With nobody in mind. And while I may have gotten a lot out of it and attempted to protect it by only gifting it to certain people, The Haydens are just trying to do the same thing. So even though this feels a little hypocritical, I have to say it. If you ever find yourself out in the middle of nowhere in southeastern Michigan and you happen to come across some foreboding signs along the side of the road, as a favor to the Hayden’s and me and my friends — “Please. Now. Turn back and leave in peace. Leave. Don’t stay here. Leave.”

Roman Mars:
99% Invisible was produced this week by Alex Goldman, Sam Greenspan and me, Roman Mars. Special thanks to our cast of radio players including Cameron Lock, Mooj Zadie, Ashleyanne Krigbaum and Pat Mesiti-Miller. They did NOT break into Heyoon. They did it all in my backyard so please don’t write us and ask us how to find Heyoon. We do not know. Alex didn’t tell us.

We are a project of 91.7 local public radio KLAW in San Francisco and the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco.