On April 12, 1937, together with his close friends Aldous and Maria Huxley, their then 17-year-old son Matthew, and pianist/movie critic Christopher Wood, Gerald Heard arrived in New York City on the S.S. Normandie.

A long-cherished dream of Heard’s had been to establish a place where the study of comparative religion, together with research into and practice of the techniques of meditation and prayer as taught by the major religions of the world, might be carried on. In 1941 Heard put the larger part of his personal financial resources from his inheritance into building and endowing Trabuco College, completed by builder Felix Greene in 1942 as envisioned by Heard. 

For the remaining fifteen years of his active life Heard spent his time and energy in writing, lecturing, research, travel, and making numerous radio and television appearances. "Vacations!" he decried, "Who has time for a vacation? I suffer from an insatiable curiosity: the Universe is my hobby."