Driftwood Cottage, often simply called Driftwood, is a historic home located on Carmel Point at the southern city limits of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. It has views of Carmel Bay, Carmel River, and Point Lobos. It was the first house built on Carmel Point and became the home of actress Jean Arthur. Architect George W. Reamer built the house in 1908 for Florence E. Wells.
History
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, left many people homeless including a group of writers and artists who relocated to Carmel-by-the-Sea along with poet George Sterling. This included Florence E. Wells (1864-1966), of Oakland, and her cousin Sara E. Reamer (1842-1910), that bought property in 1906. Sara Reamer was the mother of architect George W. Reamer (1864-1938), who they called “Nannu.” George Reamer built a house for Wells, as a summer cottage from a sketch she drew on brown paper. It was the first house to go up on Carmel Point at the southwest corner of Scenic Drive and Ocean View Avenue. The property fronted the Carmel River lagoon at a time when the Point was without trees and any other homes.
The home is set on five lots and has two signle-story buildings made of redwood and stone. The main house and guest cottage are connected by a hallway. There are four rooms in the main house, which open onto an atrium with a glass dome. The floor is covered with blue Japanese slate. A redwood fence borders the grounds for privacy. Reamer built the home with his signature lava rock fireplace.
Reamer built a second home on Carmel Point for he and his mother that was across from Wells's cottage. The Wells house was finished first. The area in front of the Wells and Reamer homes was marked on the district charts as "Reamer's Point," and the beach below was called "Reamer's Beach" by those who knew the area at that time.
On June 7, 1911, The Salinas Californian, reported a real estate transaction between the Carmel Development Company and Wells for four lots, 25, 26, 27, 28, and a strip wide off the south-side lots 23 and 24, block B14, addition 7 for $10 (). The lot numbers match the Monterey County legal description for the Driftwood 26398 Ocean View address.
Robinson Jeffers's family moved into Tor House in August 1919. Tor House fronts Scenic Drive and the Pacific Ocean a few blocks from Driftwood Cottage.
In 1923, Wells later purchased six acres of the beachfront below her house between Scenic Road and the ocean. Two years later the Carmel Sanitary District Board filed a condemnation suit in the Superior Court for of Well's property on Carmel Point, to establish a right of way from the septic tank, across the beach to the rocks in front of the Wells house that would go into the water. The Sanitary District later dropped the suit. In March 1953, Wells sold of her beach front to the State Park of California under the Beach Acquisition Program.
In 1925, the only homes on Carmel Point were the homes of Col. Fletcher Dutton, poet Robinson Jeffers and his wife Una, Playwright Charles King Van Riper, musician and attorney Edward G. Kuster, George W. Reamer, and Florence Wells.
The Carmel Pine Cone was tracking Wells comings and goings and on July 12, 1929, reported that Wells was visiting her cottage, Driftwood, out on the Point, and that she would be there several weeks. Then, on December 12, 1929, the Pine Cone reported that Wells had returned to her home in Oakland after spending a few weeks at her cottage Driftwood on Carmel Point.
In June 1938, the Salinas Morning Post, reported that Wells purchased additional lots 22 to 28 on Block B14, and a parcel of land between Scenic Road and the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean. The same lots were reported in The Salinas Californian, on June 12, 1940.
Jean Arthur
Driftwood Cottage became the first Carmel home of actress Jean Arthur (1900–1991) and her mother Johanna Greene. She first rented the house from Wells in 1937, and then bought it after World War II. She remodeled the house and created a large outdoor garden, with landscape artist George Hoy, in a Japanese architecture style. A Japanese bronze dragon latches the weathered redwood gate. Arthur became friends with some of the locals like comic strip cartoonist Gus Arriola and the wife of general Joseph Stilwell who lived a few blocks away on Inspiration Avenue.
In January 1957, Arthur won a public fight to keep her Driftwood property. She even gave a rare public appearance before the State Park Commission in San Francisco to plead her case. The State Park Commission voted to deny a request by the Monterey County to develop a Master Plan for the Carmel Point beachfront and to widen Scenic Road.