5 Best Sights in The Monterey Bay Area, California

A classic low-ceiling adobe structure built in 1842, this was once a Custom House guard's residence. Exhibits at the house survey life in Monterey from the era of Mexican rule to the present. The building is open only for private tour requests (call for times and fees), but you can visit the peaceful rear garden and its rose-covered arbor.

The restored 2-acre complex includes a house dating from the 1820s, a gift shop, bakery, and a large garden enclosed by a high adobe wall. The mostly Victorian-era antiques and memorabilia that fill the house provide a glimpse into the life of a prosperous sea merchant's family. The museum is open weekends for self-guided tours; docents are available to answer questions. If the house is closed, you can still pick up walking-tour maps and stroll the grounds.

A veranda encircles the second floor of this 1835 adobe, whose design bears witness to the Mexican and New England influences on the Monterey style. The building’s namesake, Thomas O. Larkin, an early California statesman, brought many of the antiques inside from New Hampshire. Tours are available by special appointment only. If the building is closed, you can peek in the windows and stroll the gardens.

This house was named in honor of author Robert Louis Stevenson, who boarded here briefly in a tiny upstairs room. Items from his family's estate furnish Stevenson's room; period-decorated chambers elsewhere in the house include a gallery of memorabilia and a children's nursery stocked with Victorian toys and games. Visit the website or call for tour times and fees. If the building is closed, you can stroll around the gardens.

Scattered throughout the pines of Carmel-by-the-Sea are houses and cottages originally built for the writers, artists, and photographers who discovered the area decades ago. Among the most impressive dwellings is Tor House, a stone cottage built in 1919 by poet Robinson Jeffers on a craggy knoll overlooking the sea. Portraits, books, and unusual art objects fill the low-ceilinged rooms. The highlight of the small estate is Hawk Tower, a detached edifice set with stones from the Carmel coastline—as well as one from the Great Wall of China. The docents who lead tours (six people maximum) are well informed about the poet's work and life. Reservations (by phone or online) are required.