54 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: CARMELCALIFORNIA.COM House in 2022 for $40 million. Monaco billionaire Patrice Pastor spent the past decade buying $100 million of property in and near the town, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s only oceanfront home, the Clinton Walker House. Famed for its storybookstyle cottages, dozens of galleries and manicured beauty, the chic former bohemian art colony just experienced its biggest hotel renaissance in the past two years, with several new hotels and some major lodging facelifts, plus six new restaurants, including Michelinstarred Chez Noir. But well-known Carmel still has treasures yet to be discovered. “I’m courtyard-crazy,” says Gael Gallagher of Carmel Walks, who enjoys pointing out “beauty bursts” on our walking tour, from the town’s 41 charming courtyards and hidden passageways to Spanish-style tiles that lend pops of color and pattern. The oldest, Der Ling Lane, is a woodarched, cobblestoned and brickpaved alley and courtyard we entered from Ocean Avenue, the town’s main street that’s lined with galleries and shops. It’s home to the first of the town’s 18 wine-tasting rooms, Galante Vineyards. It’s also the only one whose owner’s great-grandfather, James Devendorf, co-founded Carmel-by-the-Sea. Jack Galante makes mostly Bordeaux-style red blends at his winery. The wine labels feature nuggets of cowboy philosophy, and the rug in its tiny tasting room depicts cowboys holding lassoes aloft, reflecting his childhood on a ranch in the Carmel Valley. Jack also leads wine trips around the world, from fishing trips to Alaska to jaunts to Sardinia and Corsica to adventure weekends in Montana. The lane is also home to Xocolatl Garden, a shop for single-origin chocolate bars from 66 countries, with daily tasting of four samples (perhaps a jerkCarmel-by-the-Sea has always been noticed. A century ago, it drew the attention of poets Robinson Jeffers and George Sterling (who dubbed San Francisco the “cool grey city of love”), authors Jack London and Sinclair Lewis, photographer Ansel Adams and an abundance of other artists. It caught the eye of Brad Pitt, who bought the castle-like Seaward {due west} ABOVE: Shops in Carmel have a fairytale flair to their architecture. TOP: The Clinton Walker House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, juts out over Carmel Beach.
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