Carmel Heritage Society offers home and garden tour

If you've ever wanted to look through Carmel-by-the-Sea's charming cottages and architecturally distinctive homes, the Carmel Heritage Society is presenting just such an opportunity from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 25, with the self-guided Carmel House & Garden Tour.

This year, for the first time, the house and garden tour will be held while the Carmel Bach Festival is in full swing, which affords out-of-town festival goers a chance to see a little more of Carmel than they might have planned.

Once again, the Frank Lloyd Wright house on Scenic Road will be the focal point of the tour. Harmony House, the former residence of Carmel Bach Festival founders, Dene Denny and Hazel Watrous, and Forge in the Forest House - original site of Master Blacksmith Francis Whitaker's first forge in Carmel -- will be among the nine craftsman-style and architecturally eclectic homes and gardens included in this annual event.

During the tour, ticket-holders are invited to an informal reception with refreshments in the garden behind First Murphy House.

Tickets for the tour are $25 per person (or $30 the day of the event) and may be purchased online at www.carmelheritage.org, or at First Murphy House on Lincoln Street, just north of Sixth Avenue, Carmel-by-the-Sea. Included with the tickets will be an easy-to-follow map showing the exact location of each of the homes and gardens.