Spring 2024

146 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 4 Historic La Playa From an Ar tist’s Retreat to a Hotel of Distinction B Y AME L I A WARD Photo: La Playa Hotel Archives I n 1905, artist Christian “Chris” Jorgensen—an accomplished painter known for his evocative watercolors of California landscapes—start- ed construction on La Playa in the remote and wild dunes of Carmel- by-the-Sea. It was to be a winter home and studio for Jorgensen and his wife, Angela Ghirardelli. Ghirardelli was heiress to the San Francisco chocolate empire, but despite her vast wealth, she and her husband were bohemians at heart, lovers of nature and the arts. They came upon Carmel in 1904 while on a rugged two-year horse-and-buggy painting tour of the California missions and fell in love with the area’s natural beau- ty, purchasing two lots—for $10 each—in Carmel-by-the-Sea. Jorgensen’s life did not begin in the lap of luxury, and his path was far from certain. He was born in Norway in 1860, the fifth child in his family. After his father died of tuberculosis, the family immigrated to the U.S., set- tling in San Francisco. But despite his impoverished beginnings, the gods seemed to smile upon Jorgensen. While sketching in the streets of San Francisco at the age of 14, he was spotted by Virgil Williams, the director of the newly-formed San Francisco School of Design. Williams took an interest in the youth and admitted him—tuition free—as the academy’s very first pupil. Jorgensen went on to be an instructor and eventually became the assistant director of the school. It was there that he came to A postcard from 1915. When it was built, La Playa was in a remote part of town with nothing between it and the ocean, not even the cypress trees (many of which were later planted by poet Robinson Jeffers).