Despite a groundswell of support, is time running out for Nissim Kachlon, the Hermit of Herzliya?

Photos: Menachem Kalish

Past Herzliya’s high-end beachfront homes, on the shoreline after the descent to the Nof Yam beach, you can find Israel’s most unusual homestead. It’s a winding, labyrinthine structure carved into the soft sandstone cliffs, constructed from rocks, ocean-smoothed pebbles, and beer-bottle glass, pottery shards, plastic containers, ocean shells, and recycled garbage.

While beachgoers and surfers take advantage of the last rays of afternoon sun, even the most adventurous will return home when the moon rises. But one person will go to sleep amid the crashing waves, nestled in the rambling structure he built with his bare hands: Nissim Kachlon, self-taught architect and engineer, who for more than 45 years has been chiseling and spackling this earthly paradise.

These days, however, Kachlon, a baal teshuvah known as the “Hermit of Herzliya,” is distraught. The elaborate cliffside cave he’s been living in for almost five decades after abandoning city life is being threatened with a demolition order by Israeli authorities, who claim his structure is putting the abutting cliff in danger of collapse.

A visit to Kachlon’s abode, however, makes it abundantly clear why he says, “I’m not budging from here until they take me out dead.”

Arriving at the house is an adventure in itself, a journey traversing two worlds: The first is traveling from wherever you live to this fairy-tale town of Hollywood-like mansions and sports cars that only the rich and famous can afford. Then you continue into another universe, leaving 21st-century civilization behind as you pass a mosque and navigate a cliff. Two signs indicate that we have arrived at the right place: The first says “Habayit shel Nissim,” and the second reads “Closed on Shabbat.”

“Open the gate, follow the road, go downstairs, and enter the mountain. And turn on the light at the entrance so you don’t fall,” Nissim told me over the phone.

A black dog lying in the shade, obviously used to visitors, raises his head. I open a heavy wooden gate, and I can’t believe it, but what I was told on the phone is true: To enter the house you have to literally go into the mountain. Nissim had pierced the hill with his crude tools, dug through many never-touched meters, and covered the walls with cement. Lamps embedded on the walls serve as the only light and, for a few seconds, I wonder if what I’m about to do doesn’t border on negligence — after all, the municipal authorities warned that the structure is danger of collapsing. But, just as I’m reconsidering, I find the entrance to the house itself — an open door made up of various colors of glass and clay. And beyond it, as always, the Mediterranean Sea.