Creme De Carmel: The Story of the Lively Personalities Who Shaped California's Coastal Kingdom - Tapa dura

Long before Clint Eastwood put Carmel on the map, the small city on the California coast had already built a reputation as a retreat for eccentrics from all walks of life. From spiritualist Aimee Semple McPherson to writers John Steinbeck, Mary Austin, Jack London, Robinson Jeffers, and Henry Miller, the allure of the Monterey Peninsula prompted the L.A. Times to remark that Carmel had become "the Vortex of Erotic Erudition" as early as 1910.
Notwithstanding its reputation as a bohemian artist's retreat, however, Carmel's history mirrors that of California itself, from the subjugation of native peoples at the Spanish Missions to the fight for statehood. Rare maps and photographs complement a breezy text that details the lifestyle of the early Ohlone Indians, the later arrival of the legendary Father Serra, and the transition of Alta California from a province of Mexico to a West Coast redoubt of the United States.
The true fascination of Carmel, though, may still be the many oddities that make it unabashedly unique among California coastal towns: its houses with names and not numbers; its seemingly complacent population whose average age exceeds 55; its unending crises over ice cream cones, zoning restrictions, and water; and its peculiar ordinances, which include a law against wearing high heel shoes.
On a less whimsical level, Creme de Carmel also focuses on the region's natural beauty, and the fact that it has been the locale for over 200 feature films from The Muppet Movie to Play Misty For Me. Long a magnet for artists, writers, actors, pensioners, and other escapists, the community revealed in this book is like no other in America.