Set above a stretch of lush wetlands where the Carmel River flows into the Pacific at Point Lobos, the Mission Ranch property sits on dramatic views of the sea. Clint Eastwood first moseyed into the Mission Ranch when he was a raw recruit at nearby Fort Ord looking for a place to kick back, have a couple of sodas and a good cheap meal.
For the twenty-one-year-old Eastwood, who had been a lumberjack before he was drafted and didn't know what he wanted to do when he got discharged, it was love at first squint. “The first time I saw the place I thought it was terrific,” he says. “Visually it was something else, and I thought it was the place I'd like to call home. So I kind of adopted Carmel.”