City officials are waging another only-in-Carmel fight with Pastor over a mixed-use development and subterranean parking garage on Dolores Street that he has been trying to build for more than three years.

Plans submitted to the city in 2021 called for the demolition of a former bank annex once used as a community room. Because it was less than 50 years old, it did not qualify as a historic structure — but after it turned 50 in October 2022, the Carmel Historic Resources Board voted to add it to the city's historic resources list.

Pastor agreed to build around the annex.

Then, another issue arose: The project would require the removal of a small concrete wall, decorated with exposed aggregate and inlaid rocks, built in 1972 by a man local historians dubbed the "father of stamped concrete."

The City Council last fall said the wall was too important to be moved and sent Pastor's company back to the drawing board.

Allen, the real estate agent, decried the delays as petty grievances. Pastor's proposed developments, he said, will add apartments, parking and public restrooms — all of which are sorely needed.

"He doesn't just buy to terrorize people," Allen said. "He buys because it's a good investment."

Mayor Dave Potter said it is tough for anybody to build here and that Pastor is being treated fairly.

"We pride ourselves on our uniqueness," he said. "You don't get to just come in and build whatever you want. We don't care if you're a movie star or a mega-millionaire. You have to play by the same rules everybody else does."

Hall and Neal Kruse, co-chairs of the grassroots Carmel Preservation Assn., are adamant, if surprising, supporters of Pastor.

They believe modern architecture — which they describe as 'Anywhere, USA' buildings with sterile facades and box-like structures — poses an existential threat to Carmel-by-the-Sea, which depends on tourists drawn to its cottages, courtyards and secret passageways.

Hall, a retired research psychologist, said she talks regularly with Pastor, whom she described as "so nice, so charming and so heartfelt," and noted that he has several modern-architecture projects in the works overseas.

"He said, 'Karyl, you'd hate them,'" she said, laughing.

Hall and Kruse started the preservation association in response to the first proposal for The Pit, a contemporary design approved by the Planning Commission for the previous owners. They called that planned edifice "the ice box."

Hall said they were heartened by Pastor, who proposed more traditional buildings for The Pit.

Longtime residents "remember Carmel, and we remember the sacredness of it and why people come here," said Kruse, an architectural designer. "We're the ones that are largely concerned about the loss of character. But Patrice played a central role in reassuring the residents that he would help that not happen."

Over more than two years, the Planning Commission rejected two Esperanza Carmel designs for The Pit before approving a third last August for a mixed-use project with apartments, stores and an underground parking garage. Construction has not yet begun.

The 91-year home of the Carmel Art Assn. — of which surrealist painter Salvador Dali was a member — is next door to The Pit. The demolition of two buildings there, which started in 2017, caused the art gallery to shift so much that it damaged its new roof, which started "leaking all over the place," said Jeff Becom, president of the art association's board.

"It's on a sand dune. You dig a big hole and you vibrate it for several weeks, it starts to slip," Becom said. "It's an important place, and we didn't want it to fall into The Pit."

With Pastor's plans, "I have much more hope than I've had for some time," he said.

Across the street, Borsella, owner of the sleepwear shop Ruffle Me to Sleep, is more dubious. She keeps prints of the architectural designs tucked under colorful tissue paper because customers ask her about The Pit every day.

Borsella, who used to work in one of the now-demolished buildings, thinks Pastor's planned complex is too big. She doesn't like its mezzanine. And she does not think the city should compromise its building standards just because people are sick of looking at a hole in the ground.

Pastor, she said, seems to be on a charm offensive "to ease the collective opinion that somebody's invading our property, our town." A few weeks ago,he stopped in her shop to introduce himself.

"I'm a bit of a lion," she said. "I knew he was kind of trying to come over and pet me. I felt like he was trying to win me over."

In 2021, Pastor bought another coastal gem in Big Sur, about 10 miles south of Carmel-by-the-Sea: a 2.5-acre cliffside parcel off Highway 1 occupied by the closed Rocky Point Restaurant.

Pastor inherited a slew of issues with the land, including investigations by the California Coastal Commission into unpermitted development by the previous owners and the use of locked gates and "No Trespassing" signs to block access to public land.

The Coastal Commission struck a deal with Pastor to clear the violations and potential fines if he restores the poison oak-covered bluffs and trails and removes the gates.Pastor also agreed to add public bathrooms, parking and electric vehicle chargers.

The deal is limited to clearing the violations — not the redevelopment or reopening of the restaurant.

On a recent blue-sky Monday, Jay Davisson, chief executive of a Carmel-by-the-Sea luxury home-building firm, led family members visiting from Detroit and Tampa, Fla., to a bluff top on the property where they could see the Bixby Bridge.

Davisson, who recently moved to Carmel from Atlanta, said he considered buying Rocky Point, but it was "a little too expensive." He loves Pastor's plans to restore access — and has been closely following the news and scuttlebutt about his other purchases.

In such a small town, he said, "everybody talks. But I like the fact that it's growing."

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