We were there for work…a lovely little cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, on Carmello Street, a mere block or so from the beach. And that beach is somewhere between Big Sur and Destin, Florida in style. A bit rugged, with formidable dunes, white sand, a brisk wind and glazed with fog most of the time.
Pebble Beach and the golfing greens roll right up to the Carmel beaches. The entire setting is a strong antidote to the harsh, hot Texas August sun. The houses sort of ramble together in a cozy way, mostly cottage-like and charming although a handsome Frank Lloyd Wright house struts out into the water on a point near town. The real estate prices are ghastly…I was told the cost per square foot could be as high as $1,600.00 to $2,000.00.
Carmel’s famous storybook cottages
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Walker House
We are working with a couple who are remodeling a home that is from the 1940s or so. I am getting really excited about the way things are going…the house will be completely charming. Sandra, the wife, has fantastic taste and a very special palette. She is red headed, sort of a delicious dark strawberry blond kind of red. She totally understands how to work with her personal palette and we are getting to use some wonderful apricots, russets, sages, blues, cinnamons, sienna reds and burnt peach colors. After having completed quite a few neutral cream or white projects this variation in palette is inspiring me!
Prior to the remodel their home looked like this…
Now, during construction …
Ever energetic Sandra!
These folks have been clients for many years, having worked with them on a couple of Dallas houses. It is great fun to help them create this charming Carmel cottage…and a very nice excuse to go somewhere beautifully different!
A little treat was to see Tor House and Hawk Tower right in Carmel, the home of the poet Robinson Jeffers, who said about his house (in The Last Conservative):
Against the outcrop boulders of a raised beach
we built our house when I and my love were young.
Here long ago…
…..all that we saw or heard was beautiful.
Tor House with the Hawk Tower
In the brochure about the house, another quotation by Jeffers sums up my own feelings about my own place and home (modest though it is) as well as all the glorious places to see:
"…it is only a little planet
but how beautiful it is."
January 29, 2011 - 05:20 AM polar f4