New Camaldoli Hermitage
Big Sur, California, United States
A Camaldolese Benedictine hermitage above the Big Sur coast where monks live a semi-eremitical rhythm of liturgy, lectio and work, and guests keep silent retreats with the Pacific below.
The Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine family, founded by St. Romuald in the late tenth century, joined the solitude of the hermit to the common life of the monastery; this foundation, begun in 1958 as a house of the Camaldolese congregation of Monte Corona, sits on a bluff above Highway 1 on the Big Sur coast. The monks sing the Divine Office daily in a chapel open to guests, keep a rhythm of lectio and work, and support the house with a bookstore of their own herbal teas and soaps. Roughly two thousand retreat guests a year take the two-night-minimum silent retreats, in rooms and private hermitage cabins overlooking the ocean.
Access is part of the story: Highway 1 through Big Sur suffered years of slide closures, and Caltrans declared it fully open on January 14, 2026, restoring normal arrival from Monterey after roughly three years.
Visiting
The hermitage's own site carries retreat rates (2024: $145/night single rooms in the main house, $185 to $300 private hermitages), check-in at 4pm and checkout at 10am; no children under 16; reservations through the online booking system.
Photo: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Camaldoli_Hermitage_Panorama_(19959310891).jpg), CC BY-SA 2.0, Davide D'Amico.
Associated traditions & practices
Visitor stories