Sand City sits just two miles from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, yet until this month, visitors couldn’t spend the night in town. For decades, this half-square-mile town wedged between Costco and Highway 1 has been hiding in plain sight — a warehouse district turned open-air art gallery, where murals climb concrete walls and sculptors work in spaces that once stored industrial equipment.
Now Sand City has its first hotel, and the timing feels less like coincidence than coronation.
From warehouse to gallery
The anamorphic art piece on Redwood Avenue in Sand City was created by Leon Keer + Massina (Marije Spelbos) as part of Sand City's we.Mural Festival. (Monterey Herald file)The West End arts district emerged in the late 1960s and ’70s along Ortiz Avenue and Hickory Street, when artists seeking affordable space and the freedom to work at odd hours without complaint began converting warehouses into live-work studios. What started as informal block parties and jam sessions evolved into the West End Celebration, now entering its third decade.
Each August, six blocks close to traffic and transform into a pedestrian gallery. Live music fills multiple stages. Over 170 artists and vendors line the streets. Studios that usually operate by appointment throw open their doors.
The story begins with economics and ends with intention. When commercial businesses fled for cheaper rents in the 1990s, they left behind empty warehouses with high ceilings and loading docks — spaces that artists priced out of Carmel, Pacific Grove and Big Sur found irresistible. The city responded with flexible zoning encouraging what officials called “creative rehabilitation.”
The walls speak
During Sand City’s first we.Mural festival in 2020, Hiero Veiga and Thomas “Detour” Evans created a mural of Jimi Hendrix based on photographs of his performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Thanks to that annual event, the small city now has numerous public artworks. (James Herrera/Monterey Herald)Since 2020, the annual we.Mural Festival has added over 50 large-scale murals throughout the city. International artists from Amsterdam, Nepal and Australia paint alongside locals, transforming concrete facades into an open-air gallery visible from the freeway. A Jimi Hendrix portrait, painted from photographs of his 1967 Monterey Pop Festival performance, watches over Ortiz Avenue. The concentration of public art is remarkable for a town of just over 300 residents.
Walking Sand City on a quiet afternoon reveals its layered identity: quirky flower-covered cottages wedged between warehouses, the Art Park where muralists gather during festival week, the entrance adorned with a triple image of the Sand City Kitty — the community’s unofficial mascot, wearing an artist’s beret. Cross Del Monte Boulevard, and dune trails lead to Monterey State Beach where a look to the left rewards you with Pacific views sweeping toward the aquarium.
A jogger is silhouetted by the setting sun at Monterey State Beach in Monterey on March 9, 2024. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group)A stage for the city
The newly opened Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn Sand City Monterey isn’t just filling a lodging gap — it’s adding another venue to the ecosystem.
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At December’s holiday market, the music-stage lineup featured Schuyler Horn, Shannon & the Night Divers and Eyes Like Lanterns playing from noon to 4 p.m. while families browsed vendors offering handmade sea glass and shell jewelry from Nautilus and Sway, novelty trinkets from ShuggaBee Kre8tions, plant-based vegan desserts from Tiffany’s Specialties cottage bakery and local landscape paintings by artist Teressa L. Jackson. The Yolk Marketplace brought goods from its Seaside location, Asli Chai poured authentic spiced tea and Half Moon Bay Distillery offered samples of its lavender-infused vodka.
A vendor at December's holiday market at the brand-new Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn Sand City Monterey serves a plate of food. (Photo by Heather Knapp)The stage sits within the courtyard just feet from what locals claim is allegedly the largest outdoor hot tub in Monterey County, a detail that feels appropriately Sand City, where the unexpected is standard and the industrial mingles with the whimsical without apology.
During the holiday market festivities, I spotted Mayor Mary Ann Carbone moving through the crowd, stopping to chat with vendors and families alike. She’s Chumash, has worked in Sand City her entire life and carries a detail that stopped me mid-conversation: Her family inspired characters in the John Steinbeck novel “Tortilla Flat.” In Sand City, even the mayor is infused with artistic provenance.
Beyond the murals
Sand City’s location makes it a strategic base for exploring the greater Monterey Peninsula. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is just two miles away. Cannery Row’s restaurants and shops sit along the same stretch of coastline. Carmel-by-the-Sea and its gallery scene are a short drive south, while Pacific Grove offers Victorian architecture and monarch butterfly groves.
A visitor watches the sea nettle jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey on May 30, 2023. (Doug Duran/Bay Area News Group/TNS)For seafood, Old Fisherman’s Grotto on Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf has been serving clam chowder since 1950. Back in Sand City, the Tioga boardwalk connects the retail district to the emerging arts corridor, and car shows periodically fill the hotel’s courtyard — the property features garage-style doors that allow vehicles to drive directly onto the pool deck for curated automotive events.
How to do this trip right
From San Jose, Sand City is roughly 70 minutes south via Highway 101 to Highway 1. The West End Celebration happens the third weekend of August; savvy visitors book early and make a weekend of it. The we.Mural Festival runs in early fall, adding fresh walls to the permanent collection. And now the Lido Stage offers year-round programming that keeps the creative current flowing between the big festivals.
Attendees, artists and other vendors participate in the 2014 Sand City West End Celebration on August 24, 2014. (Vernon McKnight/Monterey Herald Correspondent)Sand City isn’t selling novelty here, it’s modeling what happens when a community decides artists deserve to be put on display. While other nearby art destinations polish their galleries and count their tourists, this scrappy half-mile corridor keeps doing what it’s done for decades: making space for people who create things.
This isn’t tourism. It’s a block party with staying power, and now there’s finally a place to sleep it off.
Sand City & Monterey Peninsula: If you go
EVENTS
West End Celebration: Third weekend of August, free admission. 600 Ortiz Ave., Sand City; westendcelebration.com
we.Mural Festival: Typically late September/early October; murals viewable year-round; sandcity.org
Lido Stage at the Marriott: Free community art market and music series, noon-3 p.m. today, Jan. 25; Sunday, Feb. 22; and Sunday, March 29. 800 Morgans Way, Sand City
STAY
Courtyard by Marriott & Residence Inn Sand City Monterey: Sand City’s first and only hotel. 800 Morgans Way, (831) 233-3025; marriott.com
Kathleen Marcus of Carmel, center, exchanges information with Karen Learned of Pebble Beach, right, as Diane Magee continues to look at collars for dogs and cats during the 2014 Sand City West End Celebration. (Vernon McKnight/Monterey Herald Correspondent)LOCAL ARTISANS & VENDORS
Nautilus and Sway: Handmade sea glass and shell jewelry, nautilusandsway.com
ShuggaBee Kre8tions: Novelty trinkets, @shuggabeekre8tions
Tiffany’s Specialties: Plant-based vegan desserts, cottage bakery
Teressa L. Jackson: Local landscape art, teressaljackson.com
The Yolk Marketplace: Seaside location, theyolkmarketplace.com
Asli Chai: Authentic spiced tea, aslichai.co
Half Moon Bay Distillery: Offering lavender vodka, hmbdistillery.com
NEARBY ATTRACTIONS
Monterey Bay Aquarium: 886 Cannery Row, Monterey; montereybayaquarium.org
Cannery Row: canneryrow.com
Dungeness crab sits on ice at The Grotto Fish Market on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. From Fisherman's Wharf to Cannery Row, kitschy touristy attractions abound. But delve a little deeper, and you'll find a hefty slice of Steinbeckian nostalgia. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)Old Fisherman’s Grotto: Serving since 1950. 39 Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey; oldfishermansgrotto.com
Carmel-by-the-Sea: carmelcalifornia.com
Pacific Grove: pacificgrove.org
MORE INFORMATION
City of Sand City: sandcity.org
See Monterey: seemonterey.com
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