Hearst Castle

Recorded June 20, 1998.

Hearst Castle is the palatial estate built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. It is located near San Simeon, California, on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Donated by the Hearst Corporation to the state of California in 1957, it is now a State Historical Monument and a National Historic Landmark, open for public tours.

Hearst Castle featured 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo. Zebras and other exotic animals still roam the grounds. Morgan, an accomplished civil engineer, devised a gravity-based water delivery system from a nearby mountain. One highlight of the estate is the Neptune Pool, which features an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house.

Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and '30s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill were among Hearst's A-list guests. While guests were expected to attend the formal dinners each evening, they were normally left to their own devices during the day while Hearst directed his business affairs. Since "the Ranch" had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estate's theater usually screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions. Hearst Castle became so famous that it was caricatured in the 1941 Orson Welles film Citizen Kane as Charles Foster Kane's "Xanadu". The estate is portrayed as a gloomy and ridiculously self-indulgent barony.

This video is of my tour of the estate in June 1998.

From: http://timvp.com

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• hearst-castle
• san-simeon
• california
• pacific-ocean
• historic-landmark
• neptune-pool
• mansion
• randolph-hearst

[landofmetalgods]

i need to build a drawing room across from my study but it needs to access my library and they all need to be connected to the sitting room....you fuckin kiddin me?

[bandman48]

Great Video.... be sure you watch CITIZEN KANE now see how KANE was based on the life of HEARST>

[LimeCrayonify]

I visited a few weeks ago, And it was truly the most amazing place I have ever seen!

[BFF1]

I visited Hearst Castle in 1989, and what's amazing about it is that despite all the various types of artwork and architecture, it all works. Say what you will about Hearst as a person or media magnate, the man had taste. He was everything Donald Trump wished he could be.

[4GooMan]

Hearst had an INCOME of over 7 million dollars a year before and during the depression, yet was constantly teetering on bankruptcy. He had very expensive tastes and was obsessed with exercising them. When he died, the warehouse in San Simeone held European and ancient antiques greater than all but the most major of museums. I remember in 1961 there was only a very sleepy fishing village (San Simeone) along the coast highway.

[fxwgmike]

Very nice it's amazing how much was put into his home, but when your filthy rich you can have it all.