The best one-horse art town

Joanne Furio, Photography by Alex Farnum

When I’m looking for a quick escape that will renew both the romantic and the design student in me, I drive down Highway 1 to the tiny village of Davenport, dropped onto acres and acres of pumpkin and berry fields just past Pescadero. With just three streets running perpendicular to the highway, Davenport is easily passed by. But behind its storefronts and cottages is an outsize arts community.

On a narrow, winding road, with an incorrect street sign the town has yet to fix, appears Lundberg Studios, where world-class glassblowers perform a daring tango with a 2,000-degree furnace, breathing life into molten blobs of glass, then twisting, paddling, and rolling them into exquisite vases, lamps, paperweights, and glasses that are sold in the shingled shop a few steps away. It’s a show not to be missed. The glassblowing studio is officially open to the public just twice a year, but creative director Rebecca Lundberg admits she’ll also open the doors for a special occasion or for visitors who’ve come from afar. Just call her.

The other must-see is the Davenport Roadhouse at the Cash Store (davenportroadhouse.com), once a real cowboy shop, with gingham and gunpowder for sale, that burned in the 1950s. Husband-and-wife potters erected a new building in the ’70s, and it eventually morphed into a restaurant/gallery/store decorated with a rotating show of local handicrafts and selling baked goods and locally made soaps. Last year, the whole place was renovated, including the upstairs B&B, which traded in its hippie look for simply furnished, Zenlike rooms that are suddenly a popular stop for knowing travelers heading south.

If you can swing it, try to hit one of the roadhouse restaurant’s “Meet the Artist” dinners for some great conversation alongside your Cornish game hen or pizza. You might also get lucky with craft shows, which crop up around town with no warning other than signs along the highway.

Davenport Roadhouse at the Cash Store: 1 Davenport Ave., Davenport, 831-426-8801, davenportroadhouse.com, from $100 on weekdays in off-season (before Apr. 15) to $206 on weekends in high season; Lundberg Studios: 131 Old Coast Rd., Davenport, 831-423-2532, lundbergstudios.com

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