Harun Magnuson, 79, a 20+-year Crestone resident who spent seven years building his own off-grid home in the Baca before completing it in 2004, passed away Monday, Jan. 20 in Chattanooga, TN. His wife, Susannah Ortego, currently of Chatsworth, GA, reported that he suffered a stroke and took his final breath under hospice care at Erlanger Hospital, where he’d been flown by helicopter.
A well-attended Celebration of Life ceremony for Harun was held locally on Saturday, March 22, a day after his 80th birthday, both locally at the private Memorial Garden at Atalanta, where an apricot tree was to be planted in his honor, and nationally via a Zoom event put together by his three daughters Rachimah, Marianni and Salamah.
Harun well served and was well loved by the owner-builder community in Crestone/Baca for his service as E&AC administrator for the POA, a position he enjoyed from approximately 1998-2001. Harun and Susannah built one of the first papercrete houses (on Horseshoes Trail off Wagon Wheel Road), using salvaged materials in large part before a temporary financial windfall enabled them to complete the roof and put finishing touches to what Susannah called their “turtle-shaped” home with three flying buttresses.
Harun managed to fulfill his dream of designing his own sustainable home despite severe physical limitations he incurred from degenerative post-polio syndrome. Many Baca residents enjoyed dinners and conversation at their home on Horseshoes Trail and newcomers will recognize the house, which Crestone resident Heidi Wong has lovingly called the “Hobbit House” since she acquired the property in 2020.
In late 2020, in order to live at a lower altitude, Harun and Susannah — a retired editor who co-founded the local Indivisible group and co-produced the Crestone Community Cookbook (a Neighbors Helping Neighbors enterprise) while living here — moved to Chatsworth, GA, where Harun was able to pursue his love of gardening on property filled with fruit trees, berry and rose bushes; quite a contrast from what he was able to nurture in his Baca Grande land.