My final post from our summer adventures will include a few more photos from Carmel-by-the-Sea that I’d like to share. There are lots of other wonderful sights in Carmel that I either haven’t visited or haven’t been able to photograph yet, but I look forward to doing so in the summers to come. Several years ago I posted a few photos from Carmel, including several of its beautiful beaches, so you might want to look back at those those posts.
On our walking tour, which I mentioned in the previous post, we stopped into the lobby of the historic Pine Inn, which was the first hotel in the city, built in 1889. The building itself was moved in the early 1900’s from its original site on a hill several blocks away to its current location much closer to the ocean and the heart of the city. According to our tour guide, it was literally rolled down the hill on logs. Amazing. In any case, over the years there have been many additions to the hotel building and some free standing cottages have been added to the property. It is now a sprawling complex that takes up the entire city block. We entered and exited the hotel from a side door so I didn’t get a photo of the front of the building, nor was I able to do so during my subsequent visits for various reasons. However, this is one of the few places for which I have interior shots.
In 1905 the first Protestant church in Carmel was built on the site where The Church of the Wayfarer now stands. Due to structural deficiencies, that building was completely redesigned and reconstructed in 1940, resulting in the simple but beautiful (and interestingly, asymmetrical) church which stands on the site today. According to the Carmel Heritage Society website (which has many pictures of the interior of the church), it features 18th century walnut wainscotting (1940) and leaded glass windows (1982). I’ve always admired this church because of the beautiful gardens which surround it, which feature plants specifically mentioned in the bible. Another interesting note: the website for the church invites attendees to bring their dogs to services with them. Its Carmel, after all!
The first two photos above feature The Church of the Wayfayer and its lovely bible-based gardens. The next photo is the Carmel-by-the-Sea public library. Its gardens are nothing to sneeze at, either.
One of my absolutely favorite things about Carmel is the presence of secret passageways throughout the commercial areas of the city. These may at first appear to be narrow walkways between the buildings, but they typically open up into courtyards with gardens, shops, restaurants, art galleries or, more likely, some combination thereof. These spaces are open ended, allowing access from both sides, thereby connecting two parallel streets in mid-block. Sometimes there are signs identifying what can be found in passageway, but just as often the only way to know what you might find is to wander in and find out.
From what I’ve seen on several visits to Carmel, it appears that new construction projects of any kind a quite rare. I suspect that finding a vacant lot is virtually impossible, and people here are definitely unlikely to embrace the whole “tear-down” ethos. Cutting branches off trees is frowned upon, and tree removal is pretty much out of the question. Therefore, I was surprised to see this house, just down the road from the fairy tale cottages “Hansel and Gretel” which was obviously newly constructed.
In the photo below, a very rare brand new (or possibly extensively remodeled) house in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I would argue that, absent the questionable choice of siding color, it otherwise fits very well into its surroundings and is what one would expect to see in Carmel. It is tucked under the existing tree canopy, sits rather regally on its hilly lot, and has plenty of square footage hidden behind its rather modest street frontage.
So that’s it for this year’s summer travel. I thank you for sharing it with me. I may make some changes to the blog in the months ahead, perhaps including more local and Southern California excursions. So stay tuned.