58 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {due west} PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: CARMELCALIFORNIA.COM poet’s paradise carmelcalifornia.com $20 million refresh of all 75 rooms and public areas in late 2023. The luxury Spanish Revival-style lodging features an outdoor pool, beautiful gardens, rooms with “barmoires” (an armoire stocked with ingredients and recipes for craft cocktail-making) plus ocean, garden or village views and a Champagne buffet breakfast. It also boasts the best deal in pricy Carmel-by-the-Sea: at Bud’s Bar cocktails cost only a dime during a daily 10-minute time slot, chosen at whim by the bartender. A classic since opening in 1952, the whitewashed Tally Ho Inn charms with wall tapestries, gas fireplaces and suites with private decks that offer ocean views, just off Ocean Avenue. I sipped wine next to the outdoor fireplace in the small public patio, which also has a Pacific view. Newcomer Stilwell Hotel, a boutique hotel opened in May 2024, features two levels of patios with fire pits, waterfall features and a pizza oven, plus 42 guest rooms in serene neutrals with marble baths. I made a beeline to Tor House, poet Robinson Jeffers’ home, a small stone cottage and a fourstory stone tower in a jaw-dropping setting on Carmel Point, right above the ocean. Jeffers and his wife came here because friends compared the rugged coastal scenery to the cliffs of Cornwall, England. He constructed the cottage with a contractor, but built the tower himself. Inspired by those in rural Ireland, he hauled over boulders from Carmel Beach. A docent recited his poems on my tour, many inspired by the region’s idyllic nature. The poet lived in the home from 1919 to his death in 1962, and packed it with treasures, from an ancient Roman statue of a boy on a dolphin to a carved stone head from Cambodia. “Carmel is not so much an art colony as it is a work of art,” wrote historian Carey McWilliams back in 1930. But far from being preserved in amber, it’s a living artwork still in the making, one whose beauty only grows with time. ABOVE: La Playa Hotel recently completed a $20 million refresh of its rooms and public spaces. TOP: Whimsical architecture is a hallmark of Carmel.
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