Editor's Letter
Greetings from Carmel Magazine Editor Brett Wilbur
Welcome to the Monterey Bay area.
There is a special balance here between man’s creations and nature. Both are valued, both are preserved.
Only minutes away from the quiet beauty of redwood groves and rolling pastureland you’ll discover some of the most quaint and sophisticated small towns anywhere. But you won’t forget that you’re part of nature. Wander through the streets of Carmel and you may have to duck under the low hanging branches of a protected Cypress tree on your way to shop at elegant stores like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and J. Crew. Bring your pup as you stroll; many establishments are dog-friendly and provide biscuits and drinking water for your pet.
Art galleries, jewelry stores, specialty shops and world-class restaurants are all found just up the hill from the soft sands and blue green waves of Carmel Beach. Side streets take you into hidden garden courtyards bursting with color and past impossibly cute cottages built in the early 1900s when Carmel was founded as an artist’s colony.
Make sure to visit the buildings in Monterey from the era of being California’s first capital, take a trip to Salinas and visit author John Steinbeck’s home and the Steinbeck Center, take a tour of the beautiful Carmel Mission, and learn about ocean preservation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Play on some of the world’s best and most-beautiful oceanside golf courses, ride horseback in the hills of Carmel Valley, or take a whale watching expedition in Moss Landing.
There is an incredible history still alive in the area through architecture and livelihood. From Pacific Grove’s carefully restored Victorian homes, to Monterey’s wharf resounding with the cries of fishermen and sea lions, to fields overflowing with lettuce and artichokes, the history and contributions of the people here is inescapable.
There is a deeper echo of history one finds here as well. It’s a feeling that one picks up in the wind while walking on a trail dotted with abalone shells at Point Lobos. It’s the sudden glimpse of Native American carvings seen on a beach rock uncovered by a winter storms. It’s the feeling of ineffable peace on viewing a waterfall falling into the wild seas of Big Sur. It’s watching storm clouds move against the backdrop of the deep green Santa Lucia mountains. One remembers, and feels, the people who have seen these things before.
In the 1920s, poet Robinson Jeffers moved to Carmel Point and built a tower and home out of granite rocks he pulled out of Carmel Bay. Jeffers said this, in his poem, The Beauty of Things:
To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things—earth, stone and water,
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars....to feel Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural Beauty, is the sole business of poetry.
It is my hope that Carmel Magazine expresses to you some of the natural beauty of this area, both of its land, and its people.
Brett Wilbur,
Executive Editor