Carmel, California

Carmel-by-the-Sea, often called simply Carmel, is a small city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, the town is known for its natural scenery and rich artistic history. In 1906, the San Francisco Call devoted a full page to the "artists, poets and writers of Carmel-by-the-Sea," and in 1910 it reported that 60 percent of Carmel's houses were built by citizens who were "devoting their lives to work connected to the aesthetic arts." Early City Councils were dominated by artists, and the town has had several mayors who were poets or actors, including Herbert Heron, founder of the Forest Theater, bohemian writer and actor Perry Newberry, and actor-director Clint Eastwood, who was mayor for one term, from 1986 to 1988. Source: Wikipedia

The town is known for being dog-friendly, with numerous hotels, restaurants and retail establishments admitting guests with dogs. Carmel is also known for several unusual laws, including a prohibition on wearing high-heel shoes without a permit, enacted to prevent lawsuits arising from tripping accidents caused by irregular pavement.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is located on the Pacific coast, about 330 miles north of Los Angeles and 120 miles south of San Francisco. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 4,081. Source: Wikipedia

The Carmel-by-the-Sea area is permeated by Native American, early Spanish and American history (Blanks, 1965). Most scholars believe that the Esselen-speaking people were the first Native Americans to inhabit the area of Carmel, but the Ohlone people pushed them south into the mountains of Big Sur around the 6th century. Source: Wikipedia.

The first Europeans to see this land were Spanish mariners led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542, who sailed up the California coast without landing. Another sixty years passed before another Spanish explorer and Carmelite Friar Sebastian Vizcaino discovered for Spain what is now known as Carmel Valley in 1602, which he named for his patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

The Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until 1770, when Gaspar de Portola, along with Franciscan Fathers, Junípero Serra and Juan Crespi visited the area in search of a mission site. Portola and Crespi traveled by land while Serra traveled with the Mission supplies aboard ship, arriving 8 days later. The colony of Monterey was established at the same time as the second mission in Alta California and soon became the capital of California until 1849. From the late 18th through the early 19th century most of the Ohlone population died out from European diseases (against which they had no immunity), as well as overwork and malnutrition at the missions where the Spanish forced them to live. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821 Carmel became Mexican territory. Source: Wikipedia

The Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo was founded on June 3 of 1770 in the nearby settlement of Monterey, but was relocated to Carmel by Father Junípero Serra due to the interaction between soldiers stationed at the nearby Presidio and the native Indians.[3]

In December of 1771, the transfer was complete as the new stockade of approximately 130x200 became the new Mission Carmel. Simple buildings of plastered mud were the first church and dwellings until a more sturdy structure was built of wood from nearby pine and cypress trees to last through the seasonal rains. This too was only a temporary church until a permanent stone edifice was built.[3]

In 1784, Father Serra, after one last tour of all the California missions, died and was buried at his request at the Mission in the Sanctuary of the San Carlos Church, next to father Crespi who had passed the previous year. He was buried with full military honors.[3]

The Mission at Carmel has significance beyond the history of Father Serra, who is sometimes called the "Father of California". It also contains the state's first library. Source: Wikipedia

A Scottish immigrant, John Martin, acquired lands surrounding the Carmel mission in 1833, which he named Mission Ranch. Carmel became part of the United States in 1848, when Mexico ceded California as a result of the Mexican-American War.

Known as "Rancho Las Manzanitas", the area that was to become Carmel-by-the Sea was purchased by French businessman Honore Escolle in the 1850s. He was well known and prosperous in Monterey, owning the first commercial bakery, pottery kiln, and brickworks in Central California. His descendants, the Tomlinson-Del Piero Family, still live throughout the area. Source: Wikipedia.

In 1888, Escolle and Santiago Duckworth, a young Catholic developer from Monterey with dreams of establishing a Catholic retreat near the Carmel Mission, filed a subdivision map with the County Recorder of Monterey County. By 1889, 200 lots had been sold.

In 1902 James Frank Devendorf and Frank Powers, on behalf of the Carmel Development Company, filed a new subdivision map of the core village that became Carmel. The Carmel post office opened the same year. In 1910, the Carnegie Institution established the Coastal Laboratory, and a number of scientists moved to the area. Carmel incorporated in 1916.

The name "Carmel" was earlier applied to another place on the north bank of the Carmel River 13miles (21 km) east-southeast of the present-day Carmel. A post office called Carmel opened in 1889, closed in 1890, re-opened in 1893, moved in 1902, and closed for good in 1903.[4] Source: Wikipedia.

In 1905, the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club was formed to support and produce artistic works. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the village was inundated with musicians, writers, painters other artists turning to the established artist colony after the bay city was destroyed. The new residents were offered home lots - ten dollars down, little or no interest, and whatever they could pay on a monthly basis.[5]

Jack London describes the artists' colony in his novel, The Valley of the Moon; among the noted artists who lived in or frequented the village were; Mary Austin, Armin Hansen, George Sterling and his protege Clark Ashton Smith, Ambrose Bierce, Upton Sinclair, Robinson Jeffers, Sinclair Lewis, Sydney Yard, Ferdinand Burgdorff, William Frederic Ritschel, William Keith, Percy Gray, Arnold Genthe, and Nora May French. Source: Wikipedia

The Arts and Crafts Club held exhibitions, lectures, dances, and produced plays and recitals at numerous locations in Carmel, including the Pine Inn Hotel, the Old Bath House on Ocean Ave, the Forest Theater, and a small building in the downtown area donated by the Carmel Development Company.

In 1911, the town's rich Shakespearean tradition began with a production of Twelfth Night, directed by Garnet Holme of UC Berkeley and featuring future mayors Perry Newberry and Herbert Heron, with settings designed by artist DeNeale Morgan. Twelfth Night was again presented in 1940 at Heron's inaugural Carmel Shakespeare Festival, and was repeated in 1942 and 1956.[6]

By 1914, the club had achieved national recognition, with an article in The Mercury Herald commenting "...a fever of activity seems to have seized the community and each newcomer is immediately inoculated and begins with great enthusiasm to do something... with plays, studios and studies...".[7] Source: Wikipedia

In 1907 the town's first cultural center and theatre, the Carmel Arts and Crafts Clubhouse, was built. Poets Austin and Sterling performed their "private theatricals" there.

By 1913, The Arts and Crafts Club had begun organizing lessons for aspiring painters, actors & craftsmen.[9] Some of the most prominent painters in the United States, such as William Merritt Chase, Xavier Martinez, Mary DeNeale Morgan and C. Chapel Judson offered six weeks of instruction for $15.

In 1924, the Arts and Crafts Hall was built on an adjacent site. This new facility was renamed numerous times including the Abalone Theatre, the Filmarte, the Carmel Playhouse and, finally, the Studio Theatre of the Golden Bough. The original clubhouse, along with the adjoining theatre, burned down in 1949.

The facilities were rebuilt as a two-theatre complex, opening in 1952 as the Golden Bough Playhouse.[7] A photo of the fire from 1949 was still on file 60 years later at the rebuilt theatre illustrating the loss to the city's culture and history. Source: Wikipedia.

In 1910, the Forest Theater, the first outdoor theater west of the Rockies, was built, with poet Mary Austin and actor/director Herbert Heron leading the endeavor. Numerous groups including the Forest Theater Society (1910) and the Western Drama Society (1911) presented plays and pageants. Original works and the plays of Shakespeare were the primary focus. The property was deeded to the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea in order to qualify for federal funding and, in 1939, the site became a Works Progress Administration (WPA) reconstruction project. After several years, the site re-opened as The Carmel Shakespeare Festival, with Herbert Heron as its director and, with the exception of the World War II years of 1943–44, the festival continued through the 1940s. Source: Wikipedia.

Theatrical activities in the town grew to such a proportion that between 1922 and 1924, two competing indoor theatres were built - the Arts & Crafts Hall and the Theatre of the Golden Bough, designed and built by Edward G. Kuster and originally located on Ocean Avenue. Kuster was a musician and lawyer from Los Angeles who relocated to Carmel to establish his own theatre and school.

In 1935, after a production of By Candlelight, the Golden Bough was destroyed by fire. Kuster, who had previously bought out the Arts and Crafts Theatre, moved his operation to the older facility and renamed it the Golden Bough Playhouse. In 1949, after remounting By Candlelight, the playhouse burned to the ground. It was rebuilt and reopened in 1952.

In 1931, the Carmel Sunset School constructed a new auditorium, complete with Gothic-inspired architecture, with seating for 700. Often doubling as a performing arts venue for the community, the facility was bought by the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1964, renaming the venue the Sunset Theatre. In 2003, following a $22 million renovation, the building re-opened with the 66th annual Carmel Bach Festival, hosting such renowned artists as Lyle Lovett, k.d.lang, Wynston Marsalis, and the Vienna Boys Choir. Source: Wikipedia

In 1949 the Forest Theater Guild was incorporated, and under the leadership of Cole Weston, the 60-seat indoor Forest Theater was created. For most of the 1960s, the outdoor theater lay unused and neglected. In 1968, Marcia Hovick's Children's Experimental Theater leased the indoor theater and continues today. In 1972, the Forest Theater Guild was reactivated and continues to produce musicals, adding a film series in 1997.

In 1984, Pacific Repertory Theatre initiated productions on the outdoor Forest Theater stage, reactivating Herbert Heron's Carmel Shake-speare Festival in 1990 which, in 1994, expanded to include productions at the Golden Bough Playhouse.[11] Pacific Repertory Theatre (PacRep), a regional theatre company, is the only professional (Equity) company in Carmel and the Monterey Peninsula.[12] One of the eight major arts institutions in Monterey County,[13] it was founded in 1982 by Carmel resident Stephen Moorer as the GroveMont Theatre. Its name changed to Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1994 when the company acquired the Golden Bough Playhouse, a two-theatre complex housing both the Golden Bough and the Circle Theatres. PacRep presents a year-round season of 10-12 plays and musicals in three Carmel theatres: The 330-seat Golden Bough Theatre, the 120-seat Circle Theatre and the 540-seat outdoor Forest Theater. Annual outreach programs include PacRep's School of Dramatic Arts (SoDA) and the Tix4Kids program that distributes subsidized theatre tickets to underserved youth.[14] Source: Wikipedia.

In 1905, poet George Sterling came to Carmel and helped to establish the town's literary base. He was associated with Mary Austin, as well as Jack London, who also spent considerable time in the Carmel and Monterey area. In San Francisco, Sterling was known as the "uncrowned King of Bohemia" and, following the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 many of his literary associates followed him in his move. He is often credited with making Carmel world famous. His aunt Missus Havens purchased a home for him in Carmel Pines where he lived for six years.

Sterling wrote to his long-time literary mentor, Ambrose Bierce;[6]

"Well, you can see why I must raise vegetables. Belgian hares, hens and the fruit of their wombs, squabs and goldfish, 'keep a bee,' raid mussel reefs, and cultivate a taste for rice - not to mention cold water and 'just one girl.' I'm determined to get into black and white unnumbered multitudes of lines that romp up and down in my innards, eight a-breast." Source: Wikipedia.