Pebble Beach, CA

Pebble Beach fills the western half of the Monterey Peninsula, where the Del Monte Forest sits between Pacific Grove to the north, Monterey to the east and Carmel-by-the-Sea to the south. Highway 68 and Highway 1 lead in from the east, and 17-Mile Drive threads through the gates, where visitors pay a toll to enter. Most of the community is unincorporated Monterey County. The eight Houseberry neighborhoods split by landscape. Pebble Beach itself surrounds the Lodge and Stillwater Cove. Spanish Bay and Country Club share the northern dunes, with the Inn at Spanish Bay on one side and the Monterey Peninsula Country Club courses on the other. Spyglass Cypress holds the rocky western shore and Stevenson School, and Pescadero faces Carmel. Inland, Middlefork is mostly Poppy Hills Golf Course, Gowen Cypress is thin woodland named for a rare stunted cypress, and Huckleberry Hill is the high ground with its nature preserve. Houses are mostly single-family and mostly hard to see. Old Monterey pines and cypress close around the lanes, and the mix ranges from Spanish-style residences to mid-century houses to newer builds placed for fairway or ocean views. The forest is the public side of the place. The Del Monte Forest Conservancy, a nonprofit, looks after over 700 acres of it, among them a pine-shaded picnic clearing called Indian Village and the Casita de Lemos, a cottage nicknamed the Gingerbread House that shows from 17-Mile Drive. Marked hiking and riding routes add up to over 27 miles through the trees. For meals, the Pebble Beach Market beside the Lodge sells deli sandwiches and wine, Porter's Grill & Pub serves breakfast and lunch above the Poppy Hills fairways, and Pèppoli at Spanish Bay cooks Northern Italian. Beyond the gates, Patisserie Bechler in Pacific Grove has baked French pastries since 1984. Groceries and most errands mean leaving the Forest. Pacific Grove has a Safeway and a Lucky, Carmel is just across the southern line, and Highway 1 runs north toward Santa Cruz and south toward Big Sur. Because nearly all of the shoreline and the golf ground is private or resort property, open land here usually comes with a gate or a green fee. Even so, a walk from the Lodge down to Stillwater Cove shows why people accept it.