Robinson and Una Jeffers bought land on Carmel Point in spring 1919. The builder Mike Murphy’s crew laid up the first stone cottage that summer, with Jeffers working as an apprentice mason. Granite boulders were hauled up from the beach with heavy ropes and horses. Una said the knoll, with stones jutting from a treeless moor, reminded them of tors on Dartmoor, which gave the house its name.
The house had running water but no electricity until 1949. Jeffers kept adding to the site for years: a garage, a courtyard wall, a dining room with a cooking fireplace, and later a cottage for his sons.
The Tor House Foundation, created in 1978, runs the property as a museum. In 2024 Tor House and Hawk Tower were designated a National Historic Landmark.