Carmel Point

Carmel Point
Point Loeb
Charles King Van Riper Reamer's Point
Unincorporated community
From top, left to right: Scenic Road, Edward G. Kuster's House; Tor House; Butterfly House; Rock formation; Carmel River Beach
Carmel Point is located in Monterey Peninsula
Carmel Point
Carmel Point
Location in Monterey County
Carmel Point is located in California
Carmel Point
Carmel Point
Carmel Point (California)
Coordinates: 36°32′37″N 121°55′59″W / 36.54361°N 121.93306°W / 36.54361; -121.93306
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
CountyMonterey County
Elevation
489 ft (149 m) ft (11 m)
Time zoneUTC-8 (PST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-7 (PDT)
GNIS feature ID254713

Carmel Point also known as the Point and formerly called Point Loeb and Reamer's Point, is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. It is a cape located at the southern city limits of Carmel-by-the-Sea and offers views of Carmel Bay, the mouth of Carmel River, and Point Lobos.[1] Carmel Point was one of three major land developments adjacent to the Carmel city limits between 1922 and 1925. The other two were Hatton Fields, 233 acres (94 ha) between the eastern town limit and Highway 1, and Carmel Woods, 125 acres (51 ha) tract on the north side.[2]

Carmel Point is also known for its beautiful homes and architecture. Several of the homes in the community were designed by renowned architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Julia Morgan, and feature views of the ocean and surrounding landscape.[3]

History

The Carmel Point began with the Rumsen Ohlone Native American tribe, who inhabited the area in the 6th-century.[4] Native American artifacts were found on Carmel Point at the beginning of the 20th century.[5] The Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century and erected, within the Ohlone region, the Mission San Carlos Borroméo de Carmelo (founded in 1770). In 1834, the Mexican land grant ranchos took over the mission land and property. In 1848, Mexico ceded to California as a result of the Mexican–American War.[6]

The Carmel Point land is hilly to the east, but flat to the west, which is closest to the Carmel Bay. The highest point in the vicinity is 1,768.37 ft (539.00 m) high and is 18.7 ft (5.7 m) southeast of Carmel Point. There are about 23 people per square kilometer in Carmel Point's relatively small population. The nearest larger town is Seaside, California, which is 6.46 mi (10.40 km) northeast of Carmel Point.[7] The area around the Point has large granite boulders that expose rocky layers. In the region around Carmel Point, beaches, cliffs, valleys, bays, and plains are common.[5][8]

John Martin, acquired the lands surrounding the Carmel mission in 1859 that included the Carmel Point.[9] He built the Martin Ranch on 216-acre (0.87 km2) that went as far as the Carmel River State Beach to the homes along Carmel Point. The ranch became known as the Mission Ranch because it was so close to the Carmel Mission. They farmed potatoes and barley and had a milk dairy.[10]

The Carmel Development Company, headed by Frank Hubbard Powers and James Franklin Devendorf, bought part of the Martin Ranch between 12th Avenue and down to Santa Lucia Avenue, from John Martin in ca. 1902. They took over the entire Carmel Point and subdivided it.[11][5]

The first house to go up in the area was Driftwood Cottage built by George W. Reamer for Florence E. Wells on the oceanside of Carmel Point in 1908, on the corner of Scenic Drive and Ocean View Avenue (still standing).[12] Wells's neighbor was George W. Reamer, which is where the name Reamer's Point came from. Driftwood became the home of actress Jean Arthur from the 1940s to 1977.[11]: p54  She sold the home in 1977 for $435,000 (equivalent to $2,192,211 in 2023). During the 1910s, early property owners bought land and built their homes. There was no electricity, gas, or paved roads during this time. By 1925, the only homes on Carmel Point were the homes of Col. Fletcher Dutton, poet Robinson Jeffers and his wife Una, Playwright Charles King Van Riper, musician and attorney Edward G. Kuster, George W. Reamer, and Florence Wells.[5]

Carmel's first golf course on and Club House in 1914.

In 1912 Philip Wilson Sr. (1862-1944) (of the Philip Wilson Building), purchased a small writers studio at 14th Avenue and San Antonio Street in Carmel Point, from writer John Fleming Wilson (1877-1922), who had lived there for several years. John Wilson named the area "Point Loeb," after Professor Jacques Loeb of the University of California, one of the professors who had summer homes on Dolores Street, on what became known as "Professors' Row."[13][14][15][16]

Wilson Sr., converted the studio into a clubhouse for the first and only Carmel Golf Course. The nine-hole golf course was built on Carmel Point and followed the coastline from the south end of the beach to the Carmel River. It was later sold when Wilson Sr., went into the service during World War I and the land was subdivided into lots. In 1990, the clubhouse became a one bedroom residence on San Antonio Street.[5][17]

One of the first homes built on Carmel Point was built in 1919, when Robinson Jeffers constructed Tor House, naming it for the craggy knoll, the "tor" on which it was built. Jeffers contracted Mike Murphy, an established Carmel developer, to help build a stone cottage. They brought the granite from the beach below to build the house. At this time, Carmel Point was a treeless bluff with few buildings.[5][15][18]

Jeffers coined the word "inhumanism", which is the belief that humankind is too self-centered to the "astonishing beauty of things." In the poem Carmel Point, Jeffers called on humans to "uncenter" themselves.

Carmel Point
The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses—
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads—
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff. As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.[19]


Ernest Bixler built a large two-story Tudor-style T. J. Brennan House, with a Carmel stone exterior located at the corner of 26097 Scenic Road and Martin Way overlooking Carmel Point and Carmel Bay in 1936.[20][17][21]

In 1921, the Abalone League had its beginning on Carmel Point after World War I. A rough diamond at the Point was near Charles Van Riper's house, who built one of the first homes on Carmel Point. A plaque outside the house reads: "This was the site of the Charles and Helen van Riper house. In 1921, Charles and friends Thorne Taylor and Tal Josselyn founded the first softball league in the Western United States, dubbed the Abalone League. Games were played on Carmel Point, directly below the Van-Riper house."[22][5][11]: p58  A. Carlyle Stoney built his home on Carmel Point, on the third base line of the baseball field.[23]

The Mrs. Clinton Walker House, also known as Cabin on the Rocks, was built on Carmel Point, on the beach side of Scenic Road. The house was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1948 and completed in 1951 for Mrs. Clinton Della Walker of Pebble Beach, California.[24] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.[25]

The Mid-century modern 2,777 square feet (258.0 m2) Butterfly House, was built in 1951 for $135,000 (equivalent to $1,709,627 in 2023) by architect Francis W. Wynkoop. He lived in the house until 1955. It is one of the few houses that is on the ocean front at Carmel Point.[26] The second one he built on Carmel Point is a mid-century modern Expressionist-style house that was built in 1953 on Scenic Road.[20]

Selected Carmel Point homes

Climate

Carmel Point has a cool summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb), which is normal in coastal areas of California. Summers are typically mild, with overcast mornings produced by marine layer clouds, which can bring drizzles that typically gives way to clear skies in the afternoon.

September and October has an Indian summer and this offers the best weather of the year,[30] with an average high of 71 °F (22 °C). The wet season is from October to May. Average annual rainfall in Carmel Point is 20 inches (500 mm) per year, and the average temperature is 57 °F (14 °C).

Climate data for Carmel Point
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Mean daily maximum °F (°C) 60.1
(15.6) 		61.0
(16.1) 		64.0
(17.8) 		64.9
(18.3) 		66.9
(19.4) 		68.0
(20.0) 		70.0
(21.1) 		71.1
(21.7) 		70.0
(21.1) 		64.0
(17.8) 		62.1
(16.7) 		60.1
(15.6) 		65.1
(18.4)
Mean daily minimum °F (°C) 43.0
(6.1) 		45.0
(7.2) 		46.9
(8.3) 		48.0
(8.9) 		50.0
(10.0) 		52.0
(11.1) 		53.1
(11.7) 		53.1
(11.7) 		51.1
(10.6) 		46.9
(8.3) 		46.0
(7.8) 		43.0
(6.1) 		48.2
(9.0)
Average precipitation inches (mm) 4.19
(106) 		3.75
(95) 		3.53
(90) 		1.48
(38) 		0.50
(13) 		0.20
(5.1) 		0.09
(2.3) 		0.11
(2.8) 		0.28
(7.1) 		1.06
(27) 		2.43
(62) 		2.73
(69) 		20.35
(517)
Source: [31]

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ Geonameslink 254713 Carmel Point at Geonames.org (cc-by);post updated 2022-07-17
  2. ^ "Outlands In The Eighty Acres". United States Department of Interior National Park Service. February 21, 1989. Retrieved October 18, 2022.
  3. ^ a b Tamara Grippi (March 30, 2001). "An historic gem discoverd in Carmel". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. p. 1. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  4. ^ Henson, Paul; Donald J. Usner (1996). The Natural History of Big Sur (illus. by Valerie A. Kells ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-520-20510-9.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Hudson, Monica (2006). Carmel-By-The-Sea. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California: Arcadia Publishing. pp. 73–74, 78. ISBN 9780738531229. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  6. ^ "The U.S.-Mexican War (1846–1848). Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". www.pbs.org. Archived from the original on February 13, 2010. Retrieved January 17, 2016.
  7. ^ "Carmel Point". www.geonames.org. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  8. ^ Seavey, Kent (2007). Carmel A History in Architecture. Arcadia. pp. 103–104. ISBN 9780738547053. Retrieved December 19, 2021. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  9. ^ Daisy Bostick (September 26, 1947). "Carmel Story Shifting Scene Chapter III". The Carmel Pine Cone. p. 8. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
  10. ^ "There were horses, cows and swine, but surprisingly, no sheep" (PDF). The Carmel Pine Cone. December 10, 2021. p. 23. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d Hale, Sharron Lee (1980). A Tribute to Yesterday: The History of Carmel, Carmel Valley, Big Sur, Point Lobos, Carmelite Monastery, and Los Burros. Santa Cruz, California: Valley Publishers. pp. 5, 120. ISBN 9780913548738. Retrieved March 18, 2022.
  12. ^ Fink, Augusta (2000). Monterey County: The Dramatic Story of its Past. Valley Publishers. p. 243. ISBN 9780913548622. Retrieved September 6, 2020.
  13. ^ Claudia Street (February 4, 1965). "Those Who Were Here In 1915 Recall Their Happy Memories". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Retrieved July 19, 2022.
  14. ^ "People Talked About". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. March 10, 1933. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  15. ^ a b Grimes, Teresa; Heumann, Leslie. "Historic Context Statement Carmel-by-the-Sea" (PDF). Leslie Heumann and Associates1994. p. 57. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  16. ^ "Elise Whitaker Martinez, San Francisco Bay Area Writers and Artists" (PDF). Bancroft Library. Berkeley, California. 1969. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  17. ^ a b "New Home To Be Erected For Dr. and Mrs. Brennan". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. April 3, 1936. Retrieved June 29, 2022.
  18. ^ Stories of old Carmel: A Centennial Tribute From The Carmel Residents Association. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. 2014. p. 18. OCLC 940565140. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^ "Robinson Jeffers". modernamericanpoetry.org. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved August 27, 2020.
  20. ^ a b c Dramov, Alissandra (2019). Historic Buildings of Downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California: Arcadia Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 9781467103039. Retrieved July 18, 2022.
  21. ^ a b c d e Dramov, Alissandra; Momboisse, Lynn A. (2016). Historic Homes and Inns of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California: Arcadia Publishing. p. 63. ISBN 9781467115971. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
  22. ^ Frost, John W. (1987). Monterey Peninsula's Sporting Heritage. Arcadia Publishing. p. 15. ISBN 9780738555898. Retrieved July 16, 2022.
  23. ^ "Carlyle Stoney". Carmel Pine Cone. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. August 19, 1949. p. 12. Retrieved June 25, 2022.
  24. ^ MALLOY, BETSY (June 26, 2019). "Mrs. Clinton Walker House by Frank Lloyd Wright". www.tripsavvy.com. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
  25. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  26. ^ Astley, Amy (2019). Architectural Digest at 100 A Century of Style. Abrams. p. 36. ISBN 9781683356479. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  27. ^ Russell Mac Masters (1976). "Architectural Digest: Jean Arthur". archive.architecturaldigest.com. Retrieved November 8, 2022.
  28. ^ Karman, James (2011). The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804781725. Retrieved September 29, 2022.
  29. ^ "The Seaburst House, A Mid-Century Masterpiece". The Seaburst House. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Retrieved November 3, 2022.
  30. ^ "Indian Summer" . New International Encyclopedia. Vol. X. 1905. p. 581.
  31. ^ "Carmel-by-the-Sea historic weather averages". Intellicast. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved February 12, 2010.

External links

  • Recollections with Colin Kuster and Anthony Van Riper
  • Carmel Point
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