This was a great base for us (four adults) to see Monterey and Carmel. Never having been to the area, originally we were shooting for a place in Carmel but could only find a reasonably priced option in Pacific Grove and thought that would be an okay compromise, but it turned out to not feel like a compromise at all. Pacific Grove doesn’t have the high end retail and concentration of restaurants that Carmel has, but in all other respects is incredibly beautiful and charming.
The house is great. Centrally located, very attractive and comfortable and has lots of information sitting around the house to guide you around using the house and seeing the area.
For me, though, in lodging what separates the good from the great places is how they handle situations where something goes wrong (Murphy’s Law). I’ve stayed at places before that might be great when you’re a little lucky and everything goes smoothly, but not so when a miscommunication or malfunction occurs and isn’t resolved, either because the owner is unavailable or unable to deal with it, resulting or us in the past in some inconvenience and in one case really impacting our trip.
This aspect was tested in our stay at the Monarch House, where something in the house broke (not our fault), and then a few days later another thing in the house broke (which was 100% our fault). In both cases, Anne was immediately responsive and helped us find a solution to each problem.
We appreciated this greatly, and I suggest that you should too. Because even if everything in your stay goes without a hitch, the host who is ready and willing to handle hiccups is also the host whose put a lot of TLC into their home and thought to your stay, as is definitely the case at the Monarch House.