Carmel Weavers Studio

The Carmel Weavers Studio, also known as Cottage of Sweets, is a historic Tudor-style English cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. It was designed by Edward G. Kuster and constructed by Lee Gottfried in 1922 for Kuster's wife as a weaving shop. Since 1959, it has operated a candy store.

History


The Carmel Weavers Studio is a one-story, plaster and wood-framed Tudor Revival Old English-style cottage with a steep pitched side-gabled roof and exterior stucco wall with half-timbered framing. Carmel stone flower planters are at the base of the building in front on Ocean Avenue and Monte Verde Street behind a Carmel stone court. The studio was built in September 1922 by Lee Gottfried for Ruth Kuster, the wife of lawyer and theatrical producer Edward G. Kuster.

Helen Hilliard showcased the studio in the Oakland Tribune on November 19, 1922, describing it as Ruth Kuster's weaving shop designed in the style of an old English cottage. The shop housed her and two fellow local weavers, with their looms and spinning wheels. They made and sold woven scarves, hats, handbags, blankets, and other clothing articles.

In July 1923, the Weavers Studio was rolled down on logs from Dolores Street to Kuster's "Court of the Golden Bough" on Ocean Avenue. The Studio was one of the first of several shops designed by Kuster to contribute to the layout of the "Court of the Golden Bough" shopping area. In August 1923, Gottfried expanded the studio with a design by Kuster that included a tall exterior clinker brick chimney and a ticket booth for the Theatre of the Golden Bough.

Wally Cullomore purchased the shop in 1959 and turned it into the Cottage of Sweets. In 1980, Lanny & Linda Rose took over the business and kept if for 39 years before selling it to Hans Hess and his family.