Carmel as an Artist Colony

Carmel's beginnings as an artist's colony can be traced to the arrival in June, 1905 of a talented San Francisco poet named George Sterling (1869-1926), friend of Jack London and protégé of Ambrose Bierce. Sterling and his wife Carrie wanted to live cheaply and healthfully, so they used several acres of land to raise vegetables, chickens and rabbits, and dined often on the freshest of seafood. Sterling also wished to avoid the constant romantic temptations of city life. (He famously described San Francisco as a "cool, grey city of love.") The Sterlings were soon followed to Carmel-by-the-Sea by photographer Arnold Genthe and novelist Mary Austin.

(Photo: Sterling in 1907, in the public domain.)