It was heart breaking leaving Santa Barbara (view from our cottage) but it was eased a bit with a latte from Recipes, the cute white and pink bakery, and a thoughtful card and chocolates from our favourite shop from Sue. Yes, it was my birthday! And we had an early celebration the night before!
After a somewhat familiar drive and then a new road to leave 101 for the coast, a stop for a snack in one of our favourite towns, Cambria, we soon arrived at San Simeon and Hearst's Castle. Sue even spotted a few of their zebras grazing in the fields where you turn up the hill.
When you arrive you park your car and enter the Visitors' Centre. Once we had our tickets for our tour (we had ordered on line in advance) we checked out the museum before we went to the house itself. it was very interesting, giving the history of his parents and Hearst, himself. His parents were comfortably off and from Missouri. His father went to California and didn't find gold, but found silver, and that was the beginnings of his fortune. He returned to Missouri where he met and married Hearst's mother and they returned to the San Francisco area where she began a career as a philanthropist. When he was ten, she took her only son to Europe where they lived and travelled for a year and a half and what he saw there, made a lasting impression.
Hearst himself started building his own empire. He attended Harvard but didn't graduate but became the editor of the Lampoon and made it very successful. He took over control of his day's newspaper in San Francisco and then went onto build his empire in New York. Here he met and married his much younger wife and had five sons. And of course kept building his media empire.
This display above indicates his involvement in the movie business.
It was time to get into our bus to take the rather spectacular drive up to the castle. We had an audio tour given (not in person) by Jeopardy's Alex Trebeck.
This property had been acquired by Hearst's father and had been a favourite place of Willie's childhood. Then it was really a camp with tents, but William Randolph Hearst had a dream to make a permanent structure.
This is what we saw when we got off the bus!
To execute his plan he enlisted the services of architect,Julia Morgan, whose work we had seen in Santa Barbara. It only took 30 years and ten million dollars to build his dream!
We had a look around before we began our tour of the grand rooms where Hearst entertained his guests.
There was lots to do from swimming to riding to tennis etc. Sometimes guests, many of whom were movie stars even used his costume collection and put on plays. Guests included Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Charlie Chaplin etc. He basically left his wife in New York (but they were never divorced and perhaps, she was happy enough) and acquired a long term, of course younger mistress, actress Marion Davis.
Hearst was busy running his empire so he would visit you about half an hour in the lounge and then he would announce dinner.
We are in the lounge now.
You were served two drinks and that was the limit! He was against prohibition but I guess he didn't want to deal with drunk guests.
Check out the ceiling!
so comfy around the fire...
You must be getting hungry. Note because he regarded this as a camp, he had catsup and mustard containers on the table and used paper napkins. When Winston Churchill visited they did use cloth! Hearst sat in the middle, not at the head of the table and the more frequently you had visited the farther away you sat!
Hearst bought up works of art from impoverished Europeans after the First World War. That wouldn't be allowed now.
These flags represent the flags of the different sections Sienna who had representatives who participated in the famous horse race there.
Then, of course, there was after dinner.
Maybe you would like a game of billiards?
This is a Spanish style ceiling
Or you could watch a screening of the latest Hollywood movie.
Our formal tour ended but we were able to wander the grounds and sometimes I eavesdropped on other tours.
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Guests got stay in these charming cottages
Winston Churchill stayed here
Jack Benny and his wife here. She said it was a bit overwhelming-no kidding!
The gardens are magnificent. Did I mention the Hearst family donated the castle to the state so it is operated through the state park system?
The family again designated all that shoreline to be used as parkland so that the reviews remain the same and nature is preserved-no condo developments here!
I would have loved to have been able to take my class here to check out these great statues of ancient gods!
Tiles, tiles...
My favourite-the outdoor pool. One great source of funding for restoration and repairs is the founder of Facebook rents the estate for a party every year for half a million dollars.
Today I just pretended I was having my birthday party here.
Here are the tennis courts.
Under them is the indoor Roman pool.
Above is the bottom of the pool. Somehow other than the Roman Gods, it reminded me of a pool I once had to myself in the Jaipur Taj hotel, once a Maharani's palace.
It was time to leave, Alex chatted to us on our bus ride down the hill. Then at the visitors' centre, we watched a movie telling us more about William Randolph Hearst. We liked the fact that although Marion Davis, his mistress, was left 51per cent of his business interests, she sold them to the family for one dollar. So there! A few weeks later she married her chauffeur! All in all very fascinating!
We hit the road again and about three and a half hours later ( no stops despite seeing at least fifty wineries) we reached our destination, Monterey, a little tired.
We were still missing Santa Barbara but we hit the nearby streets
And had a lovely Italian dinner.
Stay tuned for adventures in Carmel and Monterey
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