This 115-room mansion with twin towers and winding stairways would qualify as a "castle" by most anyone's standards.
But William Randolph Hearst's magnificent main house here, Casa Grande - at least he acknowledged it was large - was simply his ranch or hacienda. His castle, St. Donat's, was near Cardiff, in Wales.To me, however, and the state of California, which owns it, this 39- bedroom, 41-bathroom Moorish-style mansion is Hearst Castle, and it was - and still is - fit for a king.
Royalty did visit here, along with movie stars and starlets, and other wealthy movers and shakers. Today, curious tourists and romanticists pay admission well worth the price to traipse through the lavish estate, trying to imagine (it's difficult) what opulent lifestyle existed here in the 1920s, '30s and '40s.
Nestled in the Santa Lucia Mountains about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles off coastal Highway 1, Hearst Castle is one of California's top tourist attractions. The state, given the property as a gift in 1957, six years after Hearst's death, owns the buildings and 123 acres; the Hearsts still own about 80,000 acres of the ranchland, including 50 miles of coastline.
Officially, it's the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument that sprawls atop La Cuesta Encantada, The Enchanted Hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It's an incredible treasure trove of architecture and art that rivals any national monument in Europe.
As Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper once stated, "A visit to the Hearst Ranch was a ticket to Never-Never Land. Never has there been such a place and never will we see its likes again."
This is the house that newspapers built. It is a monument to "yellow journalism," a sensational journalistic style in which Hearst excelled during the 1890s and early 1900s when newspapers fought fierce battles to attract interest and readers. Hearst, an only child and sole heir to his parents' estate, became wealthy from gold, silver and copper mines, and made a fortune as well in newspapers. By 1937, he owned 25 large dailies and several magazines including House Beautiful, Good Housekeeping, Harper's Bazaar and Town and Country.
In 1919, after inheriting the 250,000 isolated acres above the central California coastal fog where he and his family had ridden their horses and camped in tents, Hearst decided to build a more permanent residence - "something that would be more comfortable" - though it never was intended to be more than a summer retreat.
Hearst spent the next 27 years and $10 million to $30 million building his hacienda - one of seven homes he had, along with a one million-acre cattle ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico, and a 67,000-acre estate known as Wyntoon on the McCloud River in northern California.
San Francisco architect Julia Morgan worked with Hearst those 27 years building the castle and its three guest houses, often modifying plans at his whim. Ceilings were constructed in such a way that they could be moved easily in case he changed his mind. If Hearst liked it, he kept it; if he didn't, he simply remodeled.
Asked once what she called the architecture, Morgan replied, "I call it pleasing my client."
An avid art collector, Hearst apparently acquired a taste for the finer things in life after venturing to Europe with his mother at a young age, visiting the great cultural centers.
The art in Hearst Castle is overwhelming, and some of the rooms reportedly were built around Hearst's possessions. His collection of Greek pottery is one of the largest in the world - originally almost 400 pieces - and his tapestries, which number almost 200, are phenomenal.
"During the Medieval period your wealth was known by the amount of tapestries that you had, and certainly he was fascinated with them," said tour guide Rick Becton. "He would be happy to know that there are copies of these tapestries - and they did hang in Versailles at one time - in the Louvre Museum. He would be fascinated to know that he had the originals and the Louvre had the copies."
Becton said Hearst's greatest love was newspapers, and he considered the tapestries the front pages of history. "They told stories during a time when many of the people did not even know how to read," Becton said. "It was a way of carrying stories down from one generation to the next."
Despite its name, La Cuesta Encantada failed to enchant Hearst's wife Millicent, who called it a "dusty old ranch." She was a city girl raised in New York and said California was no place to rear their five sons. She was happy in her French chateau-style spread on Long Island, where she spent most of her life. She died in 1974 at age 93.
Hearst spent his early married years in New York, where he was elected to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives but lost bids for mayor of New York City and governor of New York, as well as a try for the Democratic presidential nomination. He spent most of his time in California from about 1925 on, and died in 1951 at 88.
He and Millicent remained married despite Hearst's relationship with actress Marion Davies, his constant companion for about 35 years. She was a 19-year-old chorus girl with the Ziegfeld Follies when she met the 53-year-old Hearst and went on to star in 46 movies released between 1918 and 1947, 45 of which were produced by Hearst's Cosmopolitan Productions. When Davies died in 1961 at age 64 she was the wealthiest actress in Hollywood.
Davies played the role of hostess at the legendary receptions and parties Hearst threw at the Castle. If you were a guest here, your time was your own when you arrived in the daytime - there was tennis, horseback riding, picnics at the beach or feeding Hearst's menagerie, the largest privately owned zoo in the world.
You also could swim in either of two pools. The 345,000-gallon outdoor Neptune Pool (used in the movie Spartacus) is graced by the facade of a Greco-Roman temple, white marble statues and matching marble colonnades at each end of the 104-foot-long tank. The 205,000-gallon indoor Roman Pool is stunning, lined with colored Venetian glass tiles and gold.
In the evening, Hearst wanted to see you, first for cocktails in the imposing Assembly Room and then for dinner in the Refectory, with its elaborate Italian ceiling carved with the figures of saints, carved-wood choir stalls from a cathedral in Spain and Flemish tapestry.
Dinner, usually a ranch-style meal, was served on "picnic china." Guests used paper napkins - not linen - and poured catsup and spread mustard from the original container bottles kept on the tables. Remember, this was roughing it at the ranch.
"He didn't kowtow to society because he didn't have to," tour guide Becton said.
If you turned down an invitation to San Simeon, you never got invited back, as several sorry celebrities would find out. Among the more frequent visitors were actors Clark Gable and Cary Grant, each of whom came here almost 40 times. Hollywood stars had their favorite bedrooms at the Castle, but Grant reportedly requested a different one each time.
Even Grant never got to see Hearst's private quarters, the Gothic Suite, which was off-limits unless you had an invitation.
Hearst basically kept the pulse of his publishing empire from his study, writing editorials at his 16th-century Italian table and calling up his newspapers around the country as they came off the press about 6 a.m. California time.
Ill health in 1947 forced Hearst to move from his hilltop retreat to Beverly Hills, and he never returned to La Cuesta Encantada. He died four years later and is buried in the family mausoleum south of San Francisco.
IF YOU GO:
Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument, known as Hearst Castle, is off California 1, 42 miles north of San Luis Obispo. It's about a six-hour drive from Los Angeles or San Francisco. It's open for tours daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Three tours are available all year. Tour 1 includes the Castle and many of its major rooms; the Theater, where a six-minute movie of life at the Castle is shown; Casa Del Sol, one of the three guest houses, with four bedrooms and a sitting room; esplanade and gardens; and both swimming pools.
Tour 2 features the Gothic Suite, William Randolph Hearst's private suite; Library, with its 5,000 books; Celestial Suite, a group of guest rooms under the Castle's bell towers; kitchen and pantry; and both pools.
Tour 3 includes the New Wing, three floors of bedroom suites completed during Hearst's final years at the Castle; a short film of Hearst's celebrity guests during the 1920s and 1930s; Casa Del Monte, the smallest of the three guest houses; and both pools.
A fourth tour, given from April through October, presents an overview of the gardens; Casa Del Mar, the guest house occupied by Hearst for several years in ithe 1920s and 1940s; the Wine Cellar, with 3,000 bottles of Hearst's private stock; "Hidden Steps," an early network of stairs completely concealed by later construction; and both pools and their dressing rooms.
Evening tours are given on selected dates in spring, fall and winter. Remaining dates this winter for these tours, which feature volunteers in period costume re-creating life at the Castle as it was in the early 1930s, are Dec. 20-23, Dec. 27-30 and Jan. 2.
Wheelchair accessible tours are offered daily for Tour 1. Reservations must be made at least 10 days in advance by calling (805) 927-2020. Reservations for all tours may be made up to eight weeks in advance. Call MISTIX, (800) 444-7275. Tickets for Tours 1-4 cost $14 for adults and $8 for youths 6-12. The evening tour costs $25 for adults and $13 for youths 6-12. Tickets are sold for specific times and may be charged to major credit cards.
Photography is permitted, but tripods and flash are not allowed. Other attractions of interest in the area include William Randolph Hearst Memorial State Beach, San Simeon State Park, Morro Strand State Beach, Morro Bay State Park, Morro Bay, Cambria (have lunch here at Robin's) and San Luis Obispo, site of one of California's original 21 Spanish missions and the most bizarre motel, the Madonna Inn. For information on where to stay, call the San Simeon Chamber of Commerce, (805) 927-3500; Cambria Chamber of Commerce, (805) 927-3624; or San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, (805) 781-2777.