Hearst Castle

The main pool. That's the Italian temple in the background. The pool had to be redesigned after Hearst found it.
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San Simeon is all about the Hearst Castle. In fact, I didn't see anything else while I was there. You start the tour at the Visitor's Center, where I had a very bad croissant while waiting for the bus up to the castle.

On the bus ride up the hill, I looked for the zebra, elk and sheep that are said to still graze the ranchland, but only saw what looked like ordinary cows.

Unbelieveable ranch living

Hearst referred to the castle as "my ranch at San Simeon." At one time the ranch covered 41 square miles of land, including the coast. It was really beautiful, vast, empty land, which was a surprise for me. After living in So Cal for a year, I had developed an image of the entire coast of California as crowded and completely developed. As I learned, the overdevelopment ends just north of Malibu. Then you just see mountains, valleys, and the ocean.

A ceiling in one of the guest rooms.
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We started the tour in the "back yard," which is a patio which covers more square feet than most homes. The entire ranch was built from the view, which is quite impressive.

We moved on to what was originally a rose garden and now a huge pool. Hearst suffered from what his architect, Julia Morgan, described as "changeability of mind," so everything at the ranch underwent several transformations. But in general, the buildings are designed to house his medieval Italian art collection, including an ancient temple at the pool.

The view
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Next we toured one of the three guest houses. Each had a reproduction Italian carved/painted ceiling, its own bathroom and art collection. Guests at the ranch had three rules: Don't drink so much to get drunk, don't be rude to the staff, and don't get caught in the bed of someone who is not your spouse. Apparently Errol Flynn, Hollywood's original bad boy, got kicked off the ranch after just a day. Breakfast was served from 9-12, and you could order whatever you wanted from the chefs. A lunch buffet was available from 2-4. The only events the guests were required to attend were the evening activities, which started with a cocktail hour in which only one drink was served to each guest. Then there was dinner, after which the ladies retired to the morning room to gossip and the men played pool in the billiards room, before everyone joined up in the theater for a first run movie, or something that Marion Davies, Hearsts girlfriend, starred in. Snow White was premiered at the Hearst Castle.

The main house.
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After the theater, we checked out the indoor pool, where Cary Grant used to take women to get to know them better. It was incredible. The tiles were either colored glass or gold, brought in from Italy. The platform in the middle is actually for diving. Apparently not too many of the guest enjoyed swimming, so Hearst designated it as the staff pool.

Unfortunately that was it for the tour, but hopefully Ill return and get to see more of the place.