Robert Louis Stevenson House

The two-story wooden frame house on Houston Street stands out for its weathered exterior and the deep, shaded porches that wrap around its base. In eighteen seventy-nine, a young, penniless Robert Louis Stevenson rented a single room here for two dollars a week. He spent his days wandering the Monterey coastline, collecting shells and writing drafts for what became his earliest essays. He lived among the local fishermen, eventually documenting the landscape that inspired Treasure Island while recovering from a serious illness.