Pebble Beach is a part of Bean Hollow State Beach, with its own parking area about a mile north.  A pocket beach is north of the parking area, and a trail along the bluff leads south to the Bean Hollow parking area.

Straight ahead off the parking lot are outcrops of Pigeon Point Formation sandstone. The surface of many of the rocks has been weathered in a honeycomb-like surface texture known as tafoni. This area leads to extensive tide pools.

To the right of the parking lot is the beach of pebbles that give the site its name. The beach has deposits of varicolored, water-worn pebbles several feet deep, including agate, chalcedony, jasper, moonstones, and sardonyx.

Pebble Beach was a part of Rancho Butano, given to Ramona Sanchez in 1838. Manuel Rodriguez received the United States patent for it in 1866. The rancho was later purchased by Clark & Coburn of San Francisco. Loren Coburn was born in Vermont and moved to California in 1851. He worked first in mining and then as a businessman in San Francisco. He moved to the Pescadero area in 1872 and entered into land development. Coburn erected a large hotel on the bluff above Pebble Beach in the 1890s, hoping to make it a popular destination for vacationers taking the planned Ocean Shore Railroad from San Francisco. The San Francisco earthquake in 1906 ended construction on the railroad, and the hotel permanently closed.