Looking at Victorians

I wrote about the Victorian-era houses that line narrow streets in Pacific Grove, so I thought I'd take a few photos today to illustrate.  Clouds are poofin' around out there, it's cool and the California version of January, a good day for a walk.  Off I went with my camera.

There is a several-block cluster of tidy-looking wooden homes with their telltale wrinkled panes of glass that tell you the glass is old and made with a much different technique than those of modern day.  The houses are sometimes painted in vivid colors that accentuate the decorative features.  Others sport softer hues and a much more conservative trim appearance. 

One of them "Paul Stevinson 1883" is nicely situated on a corner lot that provides viewing of the property from almost every side.  It has been restored and maintained in such pristine condition that it prompts many questions about the appearance and wherewithal of the original Mr. Stevinson. The PG Heritage Society is a veritable font of information, but they are not available except on Saturdays.

Most of the equally cute and varied neighboring structures in the vicinity of Stevinson 1883 were built in about a 10-year bracket of time.  Most of them were built from 1884 to about 1905, so there was apparently a bit of a housing boom back then.  With just a squint of your eyes and some tidbits of information, imagining the people of the day stepping out onto their front verandas isn't much of a stretch at all.  Streets and lanes were dirt and mud, horse-drawn carriages were used as well as wagons for transporting goods.  Attending church and socializing with the other well-to-do folk was the primary occupation of the good people back then.

Because this town was originally a Methodist retreat in which men and women encamped for months on end in tent cabins, you could say it was a bit of a holy ghetto, willingly segregated.  Nonbelievers lived elsewhere (Monterey for instance).  Self-selected by religious belief and a moderate lifestyle lived to the fullest (is that an oxymoron?), residents were able to buy land after a fellow stern and pious believer made his vast holdings available to them.  He was the remarkable David Jacks, after whom, it is believed, Jack cheese was named. 

To be continued.....