Hayes Perkins and the Pacific Grove Magic Carpet: How a Coastal Landmark Became a Community Covenant

On the wind-scoured bluffs of Pacific Grove, a strip of coastline erupts each spring into a belt of vivid magenta. Locals call it the Magic Carpet, a nickname that understates the discipline behind the spectacle. The display owes its origin to Hayes Perkins, a peripatetic adventurer who, in the late 1930s, traded a life at sea and abroad for a shovel, a bucket, and a stubborn idea about what this coast could be.

Perkins was not a horticulturalist by training. He was a worker with a long résumé—sailor, miner, logger, landscaper, diarist—who arrived to find the cliffs near Lovers Point knotted with poison oak and scrub. He did what practical people do: cleared the ground, selected hardy groundcovers suited to salt and wind, and planted until the slopes held. The result, as the plantings matured, was a continuous bloom that read from a distance like fabric thrown across the earth.

The work was unglamorous. By most accounts, Perkins hauled water by hand and planted in increments, season after season. The City of Pacific Grove later named the strip Perkins Park, but the real memorial is the system he established: simple plantings, maintained consistently, aimed at stabilizing soil while elevating the public realm.

After Perkins’ death in the 1960s, how would the Magic Carpet endure ? Pacific Grove’s answer has been incremental and collective. City crews and volunteers have split the operational burden: Public Works handles infrastructure—pathways, erosion control, irrigation repairs where feasible—while residents and civic groups fill the gaps with regular planting and weeding days.

It’s not romantic work. Coastal gardens demand repetition and restraint. Groundcovers thin under foot traffic; winter storms tear seams in the fabric; salt and wind do what they always do. The program responds with routine: propagate cuttings to maintain color consistency, replace losses after heavy weather, and keep visitors on marked paths. The approach is pragmatic and, crucially, continuous.

Budgets reflect the site’s profile as both a local amenity and a regional draw. Funding cycles in recent years have included line items for restoration and invasive removal. Volunteer labor stretches those dollars further. In practice, the Magic Carpet functions like a small urban infrastructure project with a horticultural face: it requires planning, coordination, and steady maintenance to perform.

The Magic Carpet’s signature plantings are valued for more than spectacle. Mat-forming succulents tolerate drought, knit the soil against erosion, and accept saline spray that would scorch more delicate species. That utility has made them a go-to for coastal stabilization projects up and down California. At the same time, land managers here have to balance aesthetic continuity with ecological caution—removing truly invasive species where they appear, maintaining sightlines and access, and respecting seasonal wildlife use along the bluff. In short: the carpet is not a museum exhibit. It’s a living system on a moving edge, governed by weather, public use, and policy.

The test of any legacy is whether it can be maintained at scale once the founder is gone. In Pacific Grove, the answer has been yes—because the work was designed to be durable and parceled into tasks ordinary people can do: cut, plant, tamp, water, repeat. There’s no mystique to it, only method.

Perkins’ original contribution was clarity of purpose. He recognized what the site needed—stability and a signature—and delivered both with materials that match the climate. The community’s contribution has been to turn that clarity into policy and practice. The Magic Carpet is now a shared obligation, as routine as street sweeping and as visible as the shoreline itself.

If there is a lesson here, it’s straightforward: legacies that last are built from tasks others can carry. Hayes Perkins left Pacific Grove a plan as much as a garden. The community chose to keep doing the work. The result, each year, looks like magic. Up close, it looks like maintenance. Both views are true.