San Simeon    

The Hearst Castle

Up early and drove the 10kms north along the coast to San Simeon to the Hearst Castle. I was booked to do three tours each of 45 minutes; the Grand Rooms on the ground floor of the main building; Upstairs Suites in the main building and Cottages and Kitchen which tour two out of three of the cottages and the kitchen in the main building. My first tour was at 9am and then 10.15 and 11.15. There are thousands of visitors each day and it is very well organized. Visitors are taken by bus from the visitor centre off the highway to the house, up a very steep  road.

This ‘house’ was built from 1919 to 1947 by William Randolph Hearst, who inherited great wealth from his father and then added to that fortune by making one of his own from being the first great newspaper mogul. His father had left him a 100,000 hectare ranch near the fishing village of San Simeon, which is about 400km north of Los Angeles.

 Hearst had collected antiques ever since he had toured Europe with his mother as a 10 year old boy. He engaged Julia Morgan as architect to design a two story house on a hill 600m above sea level (the sea being about 5km to the west of the site). Hearst had collected whole rooms from houses and castles in Europe and wanted them incorporated into the new house. He had so much, and kept buying, that a very large house plus three ’cottages’ (the latter each with 6 or 8 bedrooms) were constructed. Although Hearst kept changing his mind about what he wanted and much rebuilding took place (eg the outside swimming pool was built three times before Hearst was happy).

Some years after his death in 1951 his family gave the house and its contents to the state of California (while keeping the majority of the surrounding land). It is as he left it when he last lived there in the late 1940s; that is why some portions of the exterior are unfinished. The buildings are steel frame and concrete and the exterior faced with limestone. The architect knew that San Simeon was in an earthquake zone and quakes since construction have caused very little damage.

As Hearst was a newspaper owner, a film producer and an actual (state senator) and aspiring (governor of New York and President of the US) politician he knew many famous and powerful people and he used to ask them to San Simeon for the weekend.

The film Citizen Kane (written and directed by and starring Orson Welles) was based on the life story of Hearst and in the film the house on the hill is known as Xanadu. Hearst was most unhappy when he found out about the film and tried all possible means to prevent its completion and release.

While the house is fascinating to look at it must have been an unusual place to stay. Just about everything in the bedrooms and living rooms is from the Renaissance and very valuable. Hearst liked to direct the activities of his guests, even when he was working in his study and did not participate in all the activities. Every night after dinner there was a movie shown in the 50 seat theatre and this meant that guests did not get to bed until 2am. Hearst himself then used to go back to work until 7am and then sleep until lunchtime.

I left San Simeon about 1pm and headed south to Los Angeles. The traffic started to get very heavy about 60km north of Los Angeles and I came into the metropolitan area in the evening peak house when freeways up to 13 lanes wide are choked with traffic and when there is some flow of traffic then lots of people drive like lunatics. I arrived at Manhattan Beach about 630pm and am now in my room at the Seaside Inn; with a view of the ocean. The beach is about 400m away down the hill. I will explore tomorrow.