|
n July 2, 1962, after 70 years of being held by the family who built it, the Hart Mansion was sold. The deed was signed by C. Edwin Hart, Jr., the son of Charles E. Hart and grandson of Andrew Jackson Hart, and the buyer was a local artist who had been living just down the street in Pacific Grove.
Roy-Ami Hamlin, born of French parents, lost his father at the age of ten months. His widowed mother took him to live with his maternal grandmother, Marie Louise (Chapuis) Waters at his uncle Kellner’s ranch in Santa Clara Valley. He attended grammar and high school in San Jose, but his education was interrupted by Pearl Harbor. Three years in the Navy, with duty in the South Pacific, his combat wounds earned him a Purple Heart.
Following his discharge, determined to study art, he enrolled in the Jean Turner Art School in San Francisco. During a visit to Monterey, Roy met Abel G. Warshawsky, an artist who would later write a biographical sketch of Hamlin for Game & Gossip (March 21, 1953). “I must say,” wrote Warshawsky, “I was quite impressed by his mature sense of craftsmanship and also by the quality of the fantasies of his imagination.” Warshawsky encouraged the young Hamlin to use his G.I. Bill to pursue his art studies in Paris. Following that advice, Hamlin registered at the Academy of the Grande Chaumiere and the Beaux Arts, the latter requiring a high standard of drawing talent for entry.
In Paris, Hamlin was inspired by the works of the 15th century Flemish master, Hieronumus Bosch, the engravings of the German, Durer, and the paintings of the Reaissance master, Mantegna. While traveling through Europe, he developed a graphic series of drawings which he called, “Les Fleurs des Mals.” His works were shown three times at the Grand Palace in Paris and at Enghien les Bains under the auspices of the Beaux Arts.
Upon returning to Monterey in December 1951, he was promptly welcomed into the Carmel Art Association, and a one-man show devoted to his work was soon put on by the Carmel Valley Art Center. On January 11, 1952, Irene Alexander, reporting on the show in the Monterey Peninsula Herald (“Newcomer to Local Art Scene In Exhibit at Valley Center”) wrote, “Hamlin possesses unusual artistic gifts which he hopes to use in the field of illustration….His details are drawn with delicacy of stroke yet many of his over-all effects are boldly imaginative.” Later, the De Young Museum in San Francisco dedicated a show displaying Hamlin’s work.
Hamlin’s talent for illustration soon caught the eye of the editors of the Game & Gossip, who, by the end of the 1952 began to regularly feature Hamlin’s illustrations on the magazine’s front cover.
For the October 19, 1960 issue of Game & Gossip, Helen Spangenberg wrote the second profile of Roy-Ami Hamlin to appear in the magazine—this time, in addition to Roy, the profile featured his wife Hellen, their four year old daughter, Lysa, and infant son, Beau, and the antique and decorating store called “Unlimited” which they had recently opened at 20 Prescott in Cannery Row.
Hellen had been an interior decorator, performing work for the Highlands Inn and the Tickle Pink, as well as for private clients on the Peninsula. Roy continued his art, which by then included painting miniatures, designing building facades, and refurbishing antique furniture. Hamlin’s illustrations continued to grace the covers of Game & Gossip until the end of 1966.
The Hamlin family had been living in 202 Lobos at the corner of Lighthouse Avenue in Pacific Grove, a [wonderful Victorian built in ____]. It is not known how their purchase of the Hart Mansion came about, but owning …
Shortly after the Hamlin’s acquired the Hart Mansion in July, 1962, they leased the building to Bruce Carey as his residence and the home for his business, Carey Home Antiques. Thus, after nearly 25 years of being closed to the public, the Hart Mansion once again welcomed visitors to a commercial business operating on its ground level.
Bruce Carey had been collecting antiques for 25 years and a profile of the shop in the December 19, 1962 issue of Game & Gossip called his new store, “a wonderful place to browse, to admire the vestiges of living in a former era, to be amused by such things as old catalogs from the well known mailing houses, a toothbrush, used by still in its original condition; to find treasures, such as gaboons that can be transformed into planters; charming prints for a chi-chi effect in decorating.”
Bruce Carey was born on a farm near Alliance, Ohio, to Nina and Oliver Greenmayer, who had an antique shop in Alliance. “I’m really Bruce Carey Greeenmayer,” Carey told Game & Gossip. He admitted that the name for the shop could either be Carey’s home or “the intended pun as a hint to browsers or shoppers.”
During World War II, Carey served his country in the Navy, spending five years in Cuba, Nassau and Bermuda on an experimental mine sweeper. Before coming to the Monterey Peninsula, he lived in Phoenix where he had a shop in association with a decorator’s studio. While in Phoenix, he started his collection of desert glass. He also worked in Las Vegas as an insurance broker.
Carey started collecting things when he was about five. “I still have several things that I saved before I was ten,” he told Game & Gossip. “Now, there are about 4,500 items here.”
Within two years, for reasons unknown, the Hamlin’s put the property up for sale. Bruce Carey moved his antique store to 763 Wave Street in Monterey. Roy-Ami Hamlin moved to Moss Landing where he lived until ______.
On December 3, 1964, the Hamlin’s sold the Hart Mansion to Mr. Norman P. Layton and his wife Joan G. Layton, who owned one-half interest in the property, and to Joan’s parents, Mr. Ernest H. Radke and Georgiana M. Radke, who owned the other half. The Layton’s and the Radke’s all moved into the upstairs residence and re-opened the business under the name, Antique Castle.
A profile published in the December 1, 1965 issue of Game & Gossip provided the following background:
When Ernest and Georgianna Radke, their daughter and son-in-law, Joan and Norman Layton saw the Victorian home at 649 Lighthouse Avenue, they decided this was IT. This was the ideal place not only for establishing their candy making business but also to house the antiques which Joan had collected and had been selling in the San Fernando Valley.
They hung a new sign in the front of the property read, “Antique Castle, Home Made Candies, Antiques, Gifts.” As Game & Gossip observed, “In the 1400’s a candy maker in Venice learned to refine sugar imported from the Orient and it was only the nobility that could afford candy. In England, though, sugar was used to coat pills, thus the first candy stores were actually apothecary shops. To find one of the older Pacific Grove homes converted to a candy making center and shop as the ‘Antique Castle,’ therefore, is most apropos.”
The new owners substantially refurbished the building during this period, returning it to its original splendor, and won civic awards for the restoration. A photo of the mansion taken after its refurbishment appeared in the June 7, 1965 issue of Game & Gossip along with the following caption (the historical inaccuracies in which should be taken with a grain of salt):
ANTIQUE CASTLE and Castle Candies, a famous old landmark of Pacific Grove, as it looks today after a long and arduous task of applying over 80 gallons of paint. The former home of Dr. Edward Hart was built in 1880 and finished in 1883 and is now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Radke and Mr. and Mrs. Norman Layton in which they operate a combination antique and homemade candy shop.
The profile of the “Candy Castle” in Game & Gossip featured photographs of Ernest and Georgiana making the candies and Joan placing them on shelves for sale. The article included many fascinating details of the family’s candy-making and is, for that reason, excepted at length here:
The Radke's had learned the art of making candy, the combination of sugar, chocolate, cocoa, cream and milk, eggs, fruits, nuts, and flavoring back in Kansas more than 17 years ago.
They had worked for a nationally known candy manufacturing firm, had become engrossed in the process of mixing, stirring, cooking, cooling and shaping delectable morsels. They took special courses.
Georgianna had taken special training in chocolate dipping and learned to make the curlicues which designate maple creams from nougats, etc. The Radkes also searched files for old and dependable recipes. They attribute many of their successful candies to “Rigby's Reliable Candy Teacher,” a book printed in 1897 by the son of a man renowned many years ago in the candy business.
For a number of years the Radkes made, boxed and sold candy under the “Castle” brand name in Southern California, moving to Pacific Grove last spring.
With then came not only their skill, but the huge copper kettles in which the sugar, cream and flavoring is mixed and boiled, their sparkling white mixer and the heavy marble top table on which the hot, bubbly chocolate and fondant is cooled. Mrs. Radke informs that their second marble table came from Mr. W. R. Holman, when he learned of their plans, having had the table stored in his home for many years.
Ernest has a pupil and assistant in son Steve, who is learning the candy making business from his father. And whether it's emptying a mound of freshly toasted cashews on the cooling table or describing the making of chocolate-covered cherries for the coming holiday, it’s enthusiasm which Steve registers.
Steve's bride of less than a year, Sharon, shares the selling duties with Joan, but attired in a red and white striped pinafore, to complement the quaint decor of the front rooms.
“We've tried to keep the old-fashioned scene,” explains Joan, “featuring not only the old-fashioned goodness in the candies—the tubbed peanut brittle, fudges, pecan rolls and so on. We have stocked a few gift items, such as bayberry wax for irons, Kate Greenaway books and stuffed gingerbread boys.”
The Radkes not only produce their candy in small quantities to retain freshness, they make up special orders for firms and make party mints just on special order. While they work in a setting that is reminiscent of days gone by and though they are following a very ancient food industry, there's only the very latest and freshest in their output. If you wonder outside their kitchen door, beyond the red-carpeted front steps, you can sniff the tantalizing odor of melted chocolate or just-toasted nuts.
In September 1966, the Radkes built the little showcase that continues to stand at the bottom of the stairs of the building’s entrance. The showcase is used to this day to display each evening’s fare at Robert’s White House restaurant.
In 1968, Norman and Joan were divorced and, apparently as part of their divorce settlement, Norman relinquished his interest in the property to Joan, who started going by the name, Joan Glenn.
In 1969, Joan opened an antique store in Carmel under the name, “Castle in Carmel,” but she remained involved in the Antique Castle which by then was devoted primarily to homemade candies.
All good things must come to an end, and by the beginning of 1970, the candy castle was no more. The Radkes moved to Salinas, and listed the property for sale, while the property remained vacant for much of 1970 and 1971.
[Who are the Storms? Did they run the candie Castle? Lucie went to school with the granddaughter of the Storms].
|