A Visit to Hearst Castle…

It’s hard to find the right words to describe Hearst Castle. It’s opulent, whimsical, inspiring, unfinished, beautiful, ridiculous, fun, and just plain fantastic. William Randolph Hearst inherited the land from his mother when she died. He was in his fifties. His mother always said that she didn’t leave it to him years earlier, because she was afraid that he would start building something and get carried away. Huh!! I guess she knew him pretty well.

Hearst hired a family friend, Julia Morgan, a famous woman architect, to design and oversee construction of his dream house. The worked together on it for 27 years. Hearst was famous for changing his mind about what he wanted. It was still unfinished when he died.

The tour started at the Neptune Pool. It is the most beautiful pool I have ever seen. The water is startlingly blue, and it is surprisingly deep, 10 feet. The pool was built and finished, but Hearst changed his mind and they had to tear it up and build it over again. Twice. But they ended up with something truly wonderful. There is a statue of Neptune by the stairs, hence the name Neptune Pool. Our guide told us that the people who are employed there get to bring their families up to swim sometimes in the summer. Nice, huh?

The grounds were beautiful. But they were a crazy mixture of English flower beds, roman statues, Egyptian sculptures, street lights and palm trees. Hearst was famous for the house parties he gave at “the ranch”, as he called it. He wanted his guests to enjoy their stay. There was plenty for them to do. Besides the Neptune Pool, there was an indoor pool that was patterned after a roman bath, with inlaid gold in the walls and floor of the pool. There were horses to ride with miles of trails. A movie theatre, a tennis court, and even his own private zoo.

One of my favorite rooms was the library, of course. Hundreds of books lined the walls. Wouldn’t you just love to find a comfortable chair and read to your hearts content?

At the end of the day the guests would gather together in the sitting room. Can you imagine having an interesting discussion with Winston Churchill, Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, Jimmy Stewart, or Charles Lindbergh? Those were just some of the frequent guests that were mentioned in the tour.

The kitchen was a very interesting place. I can imagine whipping up dinner for 30 or so special guests. It would be a very busy place.

The thing that was so fun about Hearst Castle was that there was no one theme or style. Whatever William Randolph Hearst liked, he put in his castle, whether it went with anything else or not, and it all seemed to work and make it the amazing place that it is.