La Jolla resident creates The Cave Home Office to help those working at home be ‘their most efficient selves’

A La Jolla resident has started a new enterprise born of his family’s pandemic-related need and is hoping to improve the work- or study-at-home lives of those similarly affected.

Moses Goodman Guinzberg, who graduated from UC San Diego in June with a degree in international business, created The Cave Home Office, a portable desk with privacy walls that assembles in 60 seconds.

The Cave Home Office sets up in 60 seconds and helps cut distractions, creator Moses Goodman Guinzberg says.

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“I get really easily distracted by people just walking around,” Goodman Guinzberg said. While at UCSD, he often would go to the library and face a blank wall in an effort to study undisturbed.

The Cave Home Office, measuring 48 by 48 inches and standing 63 inches tall, “gives you a space that’s really yours,” he said, “for you to work in, for you to be efficient in, for you to be your best in.”

The Cave comes with a six-panel shell stabilized by a desk that can hold up to 300 pounds, Goodman Guinzberg said. The panels are insulated so “everything that happens in The Cave stays in The Cave.”

It requires little setup or space, he said, and “because it’s portable, you can set it up or take it down as you need it.”

For younger users or those with little available space, there’s also a Cave Mini that measures 40 by 20 inches but is the same height “to make sure you still get that feeling of complete separation,” Goodman Guinzberg said.

The panels of The Cave are magnetic and covered in fabric and the desk is constructed of metals, mostly aluminum. The panels come in six colors, the desk in two.

“My favorite thing is The Cave has two extra panels,” Goodman Guinzberg said, “which lets you set it up in different formations” depending on need.

Moses Goodman Guinzberg says he hopes The Cave will “help people be their most efficient selves.”

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Goodman Guinzberg said The Cave’s genesis came at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, after he moved back in with his parents and 18-year-old brother in La Jolla while finishing his final quarter of school. He studied with his brother at the family’s dining room table. “We weren’t able to eat there for two months,” he said.

The two also distracted each other, he said. “This created a lot of tensions due to the fact that few of us had designated workspaces.”

The Cave — designed in conjunction with his parents, who he said “have worked in furniture manufacturing their whole life” — evolved first through the use of towels for panels, then through various materials and measurements.

Prototypes were reworked several times, Goodman Guinzberg said, with the final product ready in late September.

Goodman Guinzberg said he had always planned to work with his parents in some capacity but also “always wanted to make something that was my own, something that I could help build from the bottom.”

“The more we thought about the product, the more we … felt it has to help someone,” he said. “If it’s not those that can’t stay focused, maybe it’s those that need to save space in their home, that aren’t able to move.”

Goodman Guinzberg believes The Cave will be valuable to many, including “professionals who used to go to an office space but now feel frustrated” by constant disruptions while working from home.

He said The Cave also might appeal to parents of young children who are easily distractible, as well as college students and those in tight living spaces with more people.

“For them especially, getting that separation and really having a place to work can motivate them,” he said. “It’s about having a place to do work that will motivate you to keep doing the work.”

The Cave and Cave Mini cost $549 and $349, respectively, though Goodman Guinzberg said discounts and other offers are available.

“Ultimately, we want to help people be their most efficient selves,” he said.

For more information, visit thecavehomeoffice.com. ◆