Hearst Castle
Wow.
I mean, WOW!
It's incredible. The Hearst family owned so much land that at the turn of the century they used to put up tents at the top of the hill, and vacation up there. Of course, when they raised tents, they put down oriental rugs, and loaded in furniture, and hung paintings along the sides of the tent... it was very elegant "camping." They used to call it "The Ranch." William Randolph Hearst wanted to build something up on the hill, but his mother* wouldn't let him, so he had to wait until she passed away.
Then he went to work. In 1919, he commissioned the architect, Julia Morgan, to build three guest houses surrounding one main house (above). He was partial to Italian and Spanish styles. We did two of the tours (#1 and #2). The first was one of
the guest houses, and the first floor of the main house, and the pool(s). A lot of the interior decorations are pieces he purchased from defunct churches in Europe - there are rooms lined with choir stalls along the walls, and paintings of the Virgin Mary and iconography. The Neptune pool is gorgeous, lined with marble. Apparently the tour staff get to swim in the pool once a year.
We also got to see Hearst's own movie theater, where he showed soon-to-be-released films (and invited the actors up to the Ranch to watch with him). I took this opportunity to try out the "candlelight" setting on my camera, and it worked rather well -- took the picture in the dark, without flash. :)
The second tour was the upstairs part of the main house, including Hearst's own apartment, and the kitchen. (And the pools again.) His rooms were up on the third floor, under the fancy teak roof that was imported from Thailand and carved in place. The artist even carved an image of his family's dog into the roof! From one side of his apartments, he could watch the sunrise over the mountains, and on the other side, the sunset over the Pacific coast. He also had a small Otis elevator built into one of the towers, since he was already in his 50's when the house was completed.
The indoor pool has gold leaf in the tiles, and marble accents all around. Unfortunately, it was 10 ft deep all the way across, so nobody swam in it. But it was gorgeous.
After getting up at 5am, we were so tired by the time we were done with the tours, we didn't even bother with the National Geographic film about "Building theDream." Instead, we headed for Abbe's house, and the end of our weekend adventure. The last hour of the trip was in heavy fog coming off the ocean. Makes the sunset look much darker that way.
(*: WR Hearst's mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, founded the high school I went to in DC.)
I mean, WOW!
It's incredible. The Hearst family owned so much land that at the turn of the century they used to put up tents at the top of the hill, and vacation up there. Of course, when they raised tents, they put down oriental rugs, and loaded in furniture, and hung paintings along the sides of the tent... it was very elegant "camping." They used to call it "The Ranch." William Randolph Hearst wanted to build something up on the hill, but his mother* wouldn't let him, so he had to wait until she passed away.
Then he went to work. In 1919, he commissioned the architect, Julia Morgan, to build three guest houses surrounding one main house (above). He was partial to Italian and Spanish styles. We did two of the tours (#1 and #2). The first was one of
the guest houses, and the first floor of the main house, and the pool(s). A lot of the interior decorations are pieces he purchased from defunct churches in Europe - there are rooms lined with choir stalls along the walls, and paintings of the Virgin Mary and iconography. The Neptune pool is gorgeous, lined with marble. Apparently the tour staff get to swim in the pool once a year.
We also got to see Hearst's own movie theater, where he showed soon-to-be-released films (and invited the actors up to the Ranch to watch with him). I took this opportunity to try out the "candlelight" setting on my camera, and it worked rather well -- took the picture in the dark, without flash. :)The second tour was the upstairs part of the main house, including Hearst's own apartment, and the kitchen. (And the pools again.) His rooms were up on the third floor, under the fancy teak roof that was imported from Thailand and carved in place. The artist even carved an image of his family's dog into the roof! From one side of his apartments, he could watch the sunrise over the mountains, and on the other side, the sunset over the Pacific coast. He also had a small Otis elevator built into one of the towers, since he was already in his 50's when the house was completed.
The indoor pool has gold leaf in the tiles, and marble accents all around. Unfortunately, it was 10 ft deep all the way across, so nobody swam in it. But it was gorgeous.After getting up at 5am, we were so tired by the time we were done with the tours, we didn't even bother with the National Geographic film about "Building theDream." Instead, we headed for Abbe's house, and the end of our weekend adventure. The last hour of the trip was in heavy fog coming off the ocean. Makes the sunset look much darker that way.
(*: WR Hearst's mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, founded the high school I went to in DC.)
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