Wednesday I started the day with a hearty breakfast of pancakes (I am slowly warming to the idea and to American pancakes, which are quite different from Norwegian ones) before heading up the hill to Hearst Castle. It's not really a castle (when Hearst refered to his castle he would have meant the one he owned in Wales) but it's damn impressive all the same, perched almost 500 meters up in the hills above the ocean.
Media magnate William Randolph Hearst was an interesting character. Filthy rich, politically connected, a school dropout who loved art and spoke more than half a dozen languages, he entertained many of the celebrities of his times here, though it should be said the vast property (240,000 acres - 970 square km including 14 miles of coastline) was not even his largest in the state of California. Hearst owned something like 3 million acres of land in all.
Charlie Chaplin was a frequent guest, as was Cary Grant and Clark Gable. Winston Churchill, various US presidents and politicians like Calvin Coolidge and Franklin Roosevelt - the guest list was a who's who of the notables of the day, especially in the 20s and 30s. Apparently Hearst would invite anyone he thought of interest - either for amusement or for political or financial gain. If you didn't please him you would find your place at the table sifting slowly away from the host himself until one day you would return to your room to find your suitcases packed.
Most of the San Simeon property and the huge buildings on the hilltop were donated to the State of California, but the family retains use of some of the structures. The buildings, the furniture and decorations and the views out over the hills and the ocean... it's all just stunning and even at the steep price of $24, the guided tour is worth it. It lasts about 75 minutes, and I was lucky enough to get a guide who'd been there for over 30 years and was a walking encyclopedia of all things Hearst.
All Hearst Castle pics here.
View out over the hills and the Pacific Ocean.
This is a guest house...
The world's largest heated outdoor swimming pool at the time.
From inside one of the three guest houses.
The cathedral-like main building apparently mixes several sorts of Iberian influences. The interior has tons of art and decorations. The structure is mostly the brainchild of the female architect Julia Morgan (Hearst was a strong advocate of women's rights and fought to grant them the right to vote).
B & W of the indoor swimming pool - which Hearst mainly left for the use of the employees. Interesting point: He never refered to maidens, butlers etc as "servants", he felt that was a deeply un-American notion. They were always "employees", or "staff". He was concerned with workers' rights, paid high wages and the average time his employees stayed in his employment was a hefty 27 years.
View from a parking space on the side of the road on state route 41, a few miles southeast of Hearst Castle.
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