Lone Cypress

Standing solitary on a granite hillside off Pebble Beach, the Lone Cypress is one of the most famous and photographed trees in North America. It can be found off the famously scenic 17-Mile Drive, withstanding wind, fog and surging waves like an advert for rugged independence. Or, as a rather romantic correspondent put it in 1889, “a solitary tree has sunk its roots in the crevices of the wave-washed rock, and defies the battle of the elements that rage about it during the storms of winter.”

The tree finds itself between two of the world’s most beautiful gold courses, the Cypress Point Golf Course and the Pebble Beach Gold Links, and it has transcended nature to become a one-off marketing tool. It has variously been described as Monterey Peninsula’s pyramids, Eiffel Tower and Big Ben. Some say it is over 250 years old. It has survived arson and now survives with the help of half-hidden steel cables. You would think it was Yggdrasil.

But even if it has been marketed half to death, there is a reason the tree became an icon in the first place. It remains a beautiful and strangely poignant sight. Remind yourself that the Monterey Cypress naturally occurs nowhere else on Earth but around Pebble Beach and Point Lobos. And think back to the first person who looked and really noticed this curious, lonely, symbolic specimen.