Carmel-by-the-Sea

The Rumsen Ohlone lived in villages near the mouth of the Carmel River long before Spanish settlement. In 1771 Junípero Serra moved the second of California's missions from Monterey to the river, and Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo became the headquarters of the Franciscan missions in Alta California. It declined after secularisation in the 1830s, fell into ruin, and was restored in stages from the late 19th century.

The town itself was laid out at the start of the 20th century by the Carmel Development Company of Frank Devendorf and Frank Powers, who sold lots for a ten-dollar down payment and whatever buyers could afford each month. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, writers, painters and academics moved in, and Carmel became an artists' colony; the poet George Sterling, the writer Mary Austin and later Robinson Jeffers, who built Tor House on the point, were among them. Residents built the Forest Theater in 1910 and incorporated the town in 1916.

From early on residents fought to keep Carmel a village rather than a resort city, resisting street numbers, wide roads and large buildings. Zoning rules limited the business district, kept houses small and protected the native trees. In 1986 the actor Clint Eastwood was elected mayor, serving for two years.

Carmel's identity rests on art and on its deliberate smallness. The Carmel Art Association, founded in 1927, still exhibits local painters, and dozens of galleries fill the village, many showing coastal landscapes in the tradition of the early colony. Music is woven in through the Carmel Bach Festival, held every summer since 1935, and the Forest Theater keeps alive the town's long tradition of open-air drama.

The town guards its character with unusual rules. There are no street numbers, no street lights, no chain restaurants and no billboards, and building rules keep houses small and trees standing. There is no home mail delivery, so residents collect their post from the post office.

Dogs are part of local life, welcomed on the beach, in many shops and on restaurant patios. Golf at neighbouring Pebble Beach and classic cars during the August Car Week bring a wealthier, glossier crowd, while the Catholic mission remains a working parish and a place of pilgrimage tied to the story of Junípero Serra, whose role in Native Californian history is debated.

About 3,200 people lived in Carmel-by-the-Sea at the 2020 census, down from 3,722 in 2010, though the population of the wider Carmel area, including the valley and Carmel Highlands, is much larger. More than 40 per cent of the housing units stood vacant at the 2020 census, many of them second homes, so some streets are quiet for much of the year.

Tourism and retail are the economy: galleries, inns, restaurants, wine-tasting rooms and shops on Ocean Avenue and the streets around it. House prices are very high, and most people who work in the village commute from Monterey, Seaside, Marina or Salinas, where housing costs less.

Daily rhythms are gentle. Mornings bring dog walkers to the beach and coffee drinkers to the village bakeries; fog often burns off by midday; visitors fill the streets in the afternoon and leave quiet evenings behind them. Local debates centre on keeping the village character — limits on short-term letting, protecting trees, parking and the pressure of crowds on summer weekends.

Monterey Bay's seafood is the foundation of local cooking. Rockfish, sand dabs (a small, delicate flatfish), Dungeness crab in season, salmon, squid fried as calamari and creamy clam chowder appear on menus up and down the peninsula. Monterey's sardine canneries thrived from the 1920s until the fishery collapsed in the 1950s, and the converted canneries of Cannery Row now hold restaurants instead.

The Salinas Valley, inland, grows so much lettuce and vegetables that it is nicknamed "America's Salad Bowl", and Castroville, to the north, is famous for artichokes, eaten steamed with a dip or deep-fried. Monterey Jack, the mild white cheese, takes its name from the area. Village restaurants lean on this produce in Californian, French and Italian cooking.

Wine is the other local passion. The Carmel Valley's warm inland slopes grow mostly Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, while the cooler Santa Lucia Highlands across the hills are known for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Wineries run tasting rooms in the valley and the village, and evening wine bars are among the few lively places after dark.