Lee and I have visited Hearst Castle a few times, and it never ceases to dazzle and amaze. We decided to visit again, this time taking a new tour. In the past we have toured the main building. This time we signed up for the tour of the guest cottages, kitchen and wine cellar. : )
Hearst Castle was built by William Randolph Hearst and designed by San Francisco architect Julia Morgan, over a 30 year period starting in 1919. Ms. Morgan was of the Arts and Crafts movement, and I have always loved her work. It is beautiful - she designed some of the buildings on the UC Berkeley campus. Designing Hearst Castle would be the dream of a lifetime for an architect, with unlimited funds and access to the best of craftsmen.
Hearst enjoyed entertaining people, especially Hollywood celebrities. During its heyday, people like Errol Flynn, the Barrymores, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were frequent visitors. The castle includes a theater for viewing motion pictures, as well as indoor and outdoor pools and tennis courts.
Please, do not use these photos for any purpose, or distribute them in any way. Thank you!
The first view the tourist sees is looking up the steps at the main house:
To the right of the main building is the first of three cottages. "Cottage A" was the first to be built, and is where the Hearsts lived while construction on the main building was in progress. It later served as a guest cottage to people like Winston Churchill and David Niven.
The ceilings inside are patterned after ceilings from some of the great buildings of Europe, although as reproductions they are made of plaster rather than wood:
Cottage A has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a sitting room. The sitting room must have been lush in its day, although fabrics look somewhat worn today. The furniture got a lot of use! It is difficult to see, but there is a black rotary telephone on the bottom right corner of the desk. Franklin D. Roosevelt said Hearst Castle had better telephone service than the White House, with a telephone in every room. As a newspaper magnate Hearst felt it was essential to be well-connected to the outside world, in part because of the remote location of Hearst Castle.
The bed below is the most famous - everyone, apparently, wanted their picture taken in this bed to prove that they had stayed at Hearst castle. The headboard, of carved wood, is quite spectacular.
The tour guide pointed out that Hearst bought up entire collections from Europe, without regard for individual pieces. He was not a connoisseur, he was more interested in quantity. People criticized him for this. The total effect, though, is impressive.
The view out the window is of the Santa Lucia Mountains to the north:
Here is another view of the Santa Lucia Mountains, from an outdoor vantage point. Beautiful!
The second cottage we entered was used by the Hearst family until the 1970's. Its views are of the ocean and sunsets.
The last room we toured was the kitchen. It was large and outfitted with the best technology of its time, including a few "ice cream boxes", or very early refrigerators. In the photo below, they are the shorter light brown boxes against the left wall.
Look at the chicken faucet handles! I want those!
Here is the room where the kitchen staff would eat (there were 8 full-time cooks):
What's for dinner?
Once the tour ended, we were allowed to wander around the outdoor areas freely, which was not possible in the past. A security guard explained to us that this was in part because of budget cuts. It was quite lovely to have the freedom to explore.
Here are a few views of the main building:
Trees around Hearst Castle provided many different fruits year round:
A Western fence lizard, in royal surroundings!
There is a third cottage, which is not part of the tour. Apparently a bomb was planted in this cottage shortly after Patricia Hearst was kidnapped, back in the 1970's. It was at this time that the Hearst family decided it was not safe to stay at the Castle, and so turned all of the buildings over to the state park service. The entrance of the third cottage is shown below:
The two photos below show the back of the third "cottage":
The pools are exquisite. The outdoor pool is the most beautiful pool I have ever seen. Can't you just imagine the deities of Hollywood, or even of Mt. Olympus, lounging around the pool?
The indoor pool is a bathing pool for the gods. It is unbelievably beautiful. Many of the mosaic tiles are gilded in gold:
The pool's floor:
I was speaking to a woman in the campground at Morro Bay, and asked if she was going to visit Hearst Castle. She said no, she had seen enough castles in Europe. I have to say, though, that Hearst Castle is like nothing you have ever seen, here or in Europe, and is absolutely worth visiting. Do it if you ever have the opportunity.
