The Lone Cypress

This tree is a registered trademark. The Pebble Beach Company registered a drawing of it in 1919 and has defended the mark ever since, which makes the Lone Cypress one of very few trees with lawyers. It has earned the attention. It grows out of a granite headland above Carmel Bay, by itself, on rock, in the wind coming off the Pacific, and it is one of the most photographed trees in North America. Nobody knows how old it is. The usual figure is a seeding around 1750, and that is inferred rather than measured, because coring the trunk to count the rings would damage a tree that is already being held up. The longest-lived Monterey cypress on record reached 284 years, so on the usual estimate this one is near the ceiling for its species. The propping started early. A retaining wall went in under the roots in 1941 and steel cables followed in 1948; the cables are still there. Somebody tried to burn it in 1984 and failed. A storm in February 2019 took off a major limb. It has been fenced since 1969, because feet on the root plate were doing what the weather could not. You look at it from a pullout on 17-Mile Drive, a private toll road: about $12.50 for a car, nothing on a bicycle. The fence is as close as anyone gets.