Interesting.
Since returning from California last month, I've spent a surprising amount of time in reverie of the coastal sojourn, particularly the time we spent (it was only part of one day) in Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Big Sur.
When I was a kid I liked going to the ocean (usually at Pismo Beach) but then when I thought about it, I really didn't like it at all. When I was a kid, the beach was always 1) crowded; 2) cold; 3) windy; 4) foggy. It was fun... but. And then on those few times when the sun came out, I got a terrible sunburn because I'm a red-head, no melanin to speak of, no possibility of a tan. So any joy connected with going to the beach was countered by the hazards -- at least the hazards for me.
Yet this time, the hours my friend and I spent at the Pacific Ocean -- at Pacific Grove, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the beach at Carmel-by-the-Sea, and along Highway 1 at Big Sur, including a stop for a late lunch at Nepenthe -- were as the saying goes Amazing.
In my reveries, I go back to one or another stopping place along the way, one or another vision of the ocean which in many places was sparkling aquamarine blue rather than the dusky green it usually is, one or another high place overlook, and it's both comforting and magical. So many times I'd been to the beach previously, but nothing was like this.
And one day, I was cruising real estate listings for Pacific Grove (a place I particularly liked, given Ms Ché's and my long history of adventures in Monterey -- going back to Monterey Pop, 1967) and I happened across this:
(Note, the video is 14.5 minutes long, and I recommend muting the narration and just taking in the house and guest houses and the views au naturel as it were.)
The point is made that this place was featured on the cover of the July 1938 issue of Sunset Magazine, and it hasn't changed much since then. In another video, the real estate agent says that the property was subdivided from the Post Ranch of long ago, and this was one of the first retreats built in The Coastlands which has become a popular summer and winter retreat for the very well off.
I don't watch the video as a real estate listing, because of course, I couldn't afford to buy something like this. No, I watch it as a historical tour, something that really appeals to me. I wasn't around in 1938, but this is the kind of place along the coast I was aware of certainly and probably spent some time in when I was (much) younger, and it was the kind of place that hippies and pre-hippies liked to snap up if they could get their hands on them.
Obviously, from the video and from the listing photos this place has been stayed at, lived in and well-loved for many years. It's a little run down, a little jammed with stuff, a little homey and a lot real. This is quite different than the newer places that dot the coast, the architect's dreams, perhaps the nightmares of the owners and residents. Some of them, I guess, are nice enough, but I wouldn't want to live in them.
This one, I most certainly would move right into and feel right at home, though it would probably take me a couple of weeks or more to figure out where everything was and check out all the nooks and the crannies and the many vistas on the 2.5 acre site. The newer guest house is pleasant enough, but I would want to spend my time at the original "cabin" that still feels like 1938.
The listing says the "cabin" is 2 bedrooms and 2 baths, but you don't see that in the video. One of the original guest houses has two bedrooms as well. The newer guest house, though, only has one bedroom, a very large one, with extraordinary views of the ocean.
This location is very high above the Pacific, so you can't exactly walk to the beach, but one of the things I like about it is that you don't feel impelled to walk in the sand by the roiling surf. It's not all that far away, but it's a journey to get to the water, one that I could easily see taking in a 1941 Buick convertible if I had one.
No, this is a place I can see myself just hanging out, vegging, reading, meditating, watching, enjoying, having friends over as well as being alone, fussing with the plants and imbibing the oceanic ozone.
I think I'd never want to leave.
The cabin and original guest houses sold for $3.2 million; the newer guest house sold separately for about $3 million. I don't know what has become of the property since the sale, but I sincerely hope the 1938 portion has been preserved pretty much intact. It's not for everyone, of course, and people with that kind of money tend not to be particularly respectful of the past. The cabin was obviously old and needed maintenance, but I can imagine someone with lots of money and not much sense buying it as a teardown and building something super deluxe and modern. If it happened it would be very sad.
There's an unwritten story of these historic coastal properties in California, what they were like, how they came to be -- and certainly the story of what's become of them is mostly untold. Many are gone as if they never were. The few that have been preserved, like this one until its sale, seem to be from another world, not just another time.
While I have plenty of mixed memories of being at the ocean during my life, I would happily spend my remaining days looking out at the ocean from this place 🤩
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