Along the coastline of northcentral California in the Monterey Bay area lie three small communities, each less than 10 miles apart, yet each vastly different in their history and general recognition: Monterey (the original Spanish capital of both Alta (Northern) and Baja (Southern) California, later also known for author John Steinbeck's Cannery Row), Carmel (the famed upscale artists' community also known for the picturesque Pebble Beach golf course), and Pacific Grove (settled by Methodists and known for its Monarch butterflies).
Compared to the towns of Monterey and Carmel -- both originating during Spanish control dating back to the 1700s, the town of Pacific Grove is a newcomer, and has no connection with early Spanish settlement.
EARLY SETTLEMENT
Pacific Grove originated as a Christian, specifically Methodist, seaside resort in 1874, after a Methodist minister named J.W. Ross and his wife visited the area. They thought the pine, oak and cypress trees, together with the many varieties of wild plants and flowers, made it the perfect location for a Methodist retreat and resort for camping.
On June 1, 1875, the Pacific Grove Retreat Association was formed in San Francisco to administer what was then-called the Christian Seaside Resort in Pacific Grove. The original intent of the founders that there would be an Annual Retreat for a few weeks each Summer, set up in tents, rather than as a town with houses.
The initial Retreat area was located from the Monterey Bay up to what was, and is still called, Lighthouse Avenue, from First Street to Pacific Avenue. Individual lots sold for $50. and were each 30-feet by 60-feet in order to accommodate one wood-framed tent. The first Retreat had around 15 tents housing approximately 50 people.
Over the next few summers, the geographic parameters of the "tent city" expanded. Although the tents were dismantled and stored in the town's Chautauqua Hall at the end of each summer, the wooden frames remained standing.
The first permanent house, a 2-bedroom cottage, was built in 1880. Over the next three decades, covering the period 1880-1910, hundreds of new Victorian-Era homes were built -- primarily in the Queen Anne style, the most popular Victorian style at that time -- and also in the Arts and Crafts, aka Craftsman style, of architecture.
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| Green Gables |
The 1880s were particularly prolific regarding the building of Victorian-Era homes in Pacific Grove. A few of these large Victorian homes have been repurposed as Inns for incoming travelers, such as Seven Gables Inn, originally Page Cottage, which was constructed in 1886.
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| Seven Gables Inn |
Eventually, by 1889, when Pacific Grove was incorporated as a city, there were 1,300 residents living in an area of one square mile within the city limits.
Other prominent Victorian homes in Pacific Grove include the mansion known as Trimmer Hill, built in 1893, and the mansion built in 1895 for Senator and Judge Benjamin Langford on the corner of Lighthouse Drive and the Pacific Grove Gate of the famous 17-mile Drive. His former home is now known as the Gatehouse Bed and Breakfast Inn.
By 1910, tents had gradually been replaced by streets lined with rows of small "board and batten" cottages, many of which had been constructed over the remaining existing tents using the canvas from the tents as insulation, as well as by larger homes of varying, albeit primarily Victorian, architectural styles.
Today, Pacific Grove is said to have more than 1,000 Victorian homes still extant, making it the highest concentration of Victorian homes per capita in America.
THE MONARCHS
The surrounding area is filled with trees on which the monarchs cluster in huge bunches, where they are warmed by the morning sun and can drift among the branches of the Monterey pines and eucalyptus trees form a canopy which creates a natural buffer from the high winds. Because the temperature stays moderate all winter, the abundant flora of the nearby area provides nectar sources, and the morning fog provides moisture, it is the perfect natural environment for monarchs to continue their life cycles each year.
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(Primary and photo sources: Pacific Grove Chamber of Commerce; "The Way We Were: Pacific Grove The Early Years" by Adam W. Weiland; Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History)
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