Before 1902 the village was only a small subdivision, filed in 1888, where about 200 lots had been sold by 1889. Devendorf and Powers formed the Carmel Development Company and filed a map of the village core that year. They hired the builder Michael J. Murphy, who went on to put up nearly 350 buildings in Carmel between 1902 and 1940.
After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the company offered lots with a ten-dollar down payment and easy monthly terms. Artists, writers and musicians arrived in numbers, and the village began to be known as an art colony.
Devendorf also gave land that became the Forest Theater and Devendorf Park, and a mountain behind the city carries his name.