Hugh Comstock grew up in Illinois and moved with his family to California in 1907. He came to Carmel in 1924 to visit his sister, and that year he married Mayotta Browne, a doll maker. She needed a place to show her dolls, and he built her a small fairy-tale cottage on Torres Street, inspired by the illustrator Arthur Rackham.
More commissions followed. His houses and shops typically have steep gables, half-timbering, diamond-paned windows and tall chimneys of local stone. The record credits him with about 44 buildings between 1924 and 1946, and says 21 of the cottages still stand.
In the Depression he switched to cheaper adobe bricks. He also served on Carmel’s planning commission from 1946. In 2024 the city council marked the 100th anniversary of his first storybook cottage.