The Tuck Box stands on Dolores Street between Ocean and Seventh Avenues. Hugh Comstock built it in 1926. One local account calls it his only commercial building in the fairy-tale style.
It has a steep gabled shingle roof, stucco walls, faux-timber beams, small-paned windows and a crooked brick chimney. In the early 1940s it became a tea room, and it has served tea and baked goods in that role ever since. Comstock’s early buildings used native materials such as Carmel Valley chalk rock, natural wood, redwood shingles and hand-forged fixtures, and the Tuck Box shows the same handmade character.
Comstock also rebuilt the Forest Theater in 1939 as a $20,000 WPA project, so his hand shaped more than the cottages.