{"id":20884,"date":"2013-07-11T14:06:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T22:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=20884"},"modified":"2013-07-15T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T15:00:10","slug":"20884","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teensleuth.com\/blog\/?p=20884","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a>The Borromeo del Rio Carmelo Mission, Carmel.<\/p>\n

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The Spanish settlers of 18th century California established 21 missions, from San Diego north to San Francisco. I have visited almost all of them. They are sort of the West Coast version of the old Quaker meetinghouses I loved back in PA. More often than not, the missions in SoCal seem stranded in California’s banal surrounding, shabby hamlets of deep beauty and resonance. Unlike Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, or the Tower of London, the old Spanish missions rarely fit into their modern surroundings.<\/p>\n

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California architects, landscape artists, builders and other such scam artists usually lack the ability to successfully mesh old and new. And “New” in the American Southwest is something so uniquely grotesque. There is the Hipster Flip, or “Dwell” minimalist monstrosity; olive green or gray exterior walls, white trim and a bright, tangerine-colored door, flat, \u00a0unpainted, horizontal wood slat fence. There is Tudor suburbia, Faux-Tex-Mex, and the “Beaux Arts” starter castle. Lastly, we have the signature of sprawl,\u00a0the “Tuscan Villas” –\u00a0\u00a0faux Italianate style, tile roofs, stucco walls, shuttered windows and crenellated corners, or some derivation of the Palladian style (with sartorial historical quotation). Aggressively shoddy, cheap mini-mall quality construction, generally too big and proportioned poorly, and made of materials that are veneers, blatantly more contemporary than the image that they are constructing, with some rough hewn element tossed in, Home Depot style, oh and the stained glass windows, miles of slate countertops, lordly ceiling fans and brass fixtures that no Tuscan house ever witnessed. The Architectural Monstrosity du jour is a two-pronged emotional event: the cheapness in the rendering provokes a deep, deep sorrow while the blatant, solipsistic disregard inherent in building one’s hideous monolith right up to the property line and paving over the rest makes me want to stick forks in my eyes.\u00a0All of these are so cheap and profoundly ugly, so fundamentally separate from both their natural surroundings and intended occupants.\u00a0Despite all the renowned architects who made careers in California, the place still lacks a defining vernacular.<\/p>\n

Anyway, there are exceptions to this, like \u00a0Santa Barbara\u2019s enforced Spanish Colonial Revival, the mid-century clusters of Palm Springs, and the mind-bending natural beauty of Carmel.\u00a0The\u00a0obvious allure of Carmel-by-the-Sea is its natural splendor. Situated on the fabled Monterey Peninsula, 125 miles south of San Francisco and hugging the coast,\u00a0the town is a Disneyland version of Europe. The architecture is a fantastical mishmash of storybook English cottages, beach bungalows and Swiss Alpine chalets, sprouting from cartoonisly lush private gardens of poppies,\u00a0bougainvillea, rhododendron, geraniums, hydrangea and cabbage roses.\u00a0Monterey cypress and eucalyptus trees shroud the streets and masses of night blooming jasmine perfume the perfectly temperatured air.\u00a0Carmel is a town that vigorously curates itself.\u00a0Ordinances have banned neon signs and fast food restaurants and the curbs are immaculate, creating a sense of the unreal.\u00a0But the town – named for the Carmelite friars who settled here some 400 years ago –\u00a0is real.<\/p>\n

The Borromeo del Rio Carmelo Mission in Carmel-by-the-Sea was founded at its present site in 1771 by Father Junipero Serra, the second of the chain of California missions, and once\u00a0served as the ecclesiastical capital of Spanish California. It was all but destroyed in the mid-19th century. Today it is one of the most authentically restored of all the California missions<\/p>\n

All the CA missions grew food\u00a0for the padres and their flocks, so their gardens contained m<\/p>\n

ostly fruit trees and other food plants. The Carmel mission, which owes noting to historical accuracy, are sublime. Although there is a focus on California natives and drought tolerant plants, this Mission’s large gardens are remarkably lush and colorful.\u00a0Matilija Poppies,\u00a0native ceanothus,\u00a0culinary and medicinal herbs, citrus and olive trees,\u00a0a 55 year old pepper tree, and an 80 year old rose bush.\u00a0A walled, courtyard fountain garden with raised beds of perennials and fat roses flanked by mature live oaks leads to the asymmetrical-towered entry portal of the church with its iconic star-shaped window. Cloisters to the west of the church protect an abalone-strewn cemetery and its\u00a0stone-edged burial plots for native people shaded by gnarled pepper trees. Courtyards are teeming with cactuses, adobe buildings coated in moss, a wide paved quadrangle\u00a0to the east of the museum wing is bordered by a shaded grotto, raised flower beds and five-foot thick adobe walls draped with red and purple bougainvillea.\u00a0The caramel-colored stone Basilica houses original 18th-century artworks and is topped with a Moorish tower containing 11 bells.<\/p>\n\n\t\t