Hearst Castle and "The One": March 29

March 29

We spent the night in Paso de Robles, about the closest place to our destination today. It seems that the Hearst family wanted seclusion as well as splendor. Our approximately 45 minute drive to the visitor center was a bit eerie. The fog had come in with a vengeance, as it often does on the CA coast. It looked like we were driving up into the clouds. Shortly our limited visibility became almost no visibility.

Casa Grande (the "big house") known as the Castle:

The Hearst Castle is part of a multi-building estate built by William Randolph Hearst (of the newspaper conglomeration and movie making fame) in the early 1900’s, completed (sort of—one wing was never totally finished) in 1925.

It was never a full time residence, but was meant only for summer stays and lavish entertaining, particularly of his Hollywood contacts.

In addition to the main house, known familiarly as the Hearst Castle, there are three bungalows that were the original buildings at the site. They are guest houses (the small one is 3600 square feet)—with bedrooms and living areas. Cooking was done in huge tents nearby.

The service wing of the castle, with kitchen pantries and staff quarters, was not added until five years after it was completed. The service wing has only poured concrete walls The stone facing used on the other buildings was never added. Apparently money was tight in the late 1920’s even for the Hearsts.

The tour was interesting, even if we could not see the ocean or any of the views from the outside terraces. The fog did add its own charm though. Hearst collected art work and items of décor for decades before he even started the house and rooms were designed around his collection. It is incredibly beautiful, but ostentatious does immediately come to mind.

Egyptian carvings over 3500 years old:

We saw Egyptian statues over 3500 years old (King Tut’s dynasty, but not from his tomb), sarcophagi, Roman columns, 14th century tapestries, seats and a wooden ceiling scavenged from monasteries and convents in Europe, paintings hundreds of years old, hand crafted silver, and a host of other collectibles. There is so much gathered and displayed so closely together that you at times lose the sense of beauty of each piece. That much money and power is hard to absorb, the mind boggles.

In addition to the many sculptures, there are fabulous stone and marble carvings that were integral to the design of the Castle. My favorites were marble cherubs that were carved to appear to be supporting the roof of the building--a bit of whimsy in all that serious art.

14th century tapestry in "gathering room" (where before dinner drinks were served):

The dining room was fascinating. (See picture on Tom's posting for this date.) The walls were hung with tapestries from the middle ages and flags from Italy . The dining table is very long and narrow, but then everything was served by servants (or buffet style at lunch), so they did not need to worry about serving dishes on the table like we ordinary folks.

The china was a blue willow pattern, but not the kind we grew up with. This was obviously bone china of the finest quality, rimmed with a gold edge. For some reason, they always used paper napkins—an oddity I found interesting. Mr. Hearst ate at the center of the long table, his mistress of many years opposite him (he and his wife had an arrangement after several years of marriage and five sons—she lived on the East Coast, well provided for, and he lived on the West Coast).

Guests took their seats assigned by place cards. A new guest would start out next to Mr. Hearst, then move farther and farther down the table as their stay became longer, unless, of course they were extremely interesting and Mr. Hearst enjoyed their company and conversation.

Guests were served no more than two cocktails—house rules. Mr. Hearst did not like anyone to overindulge.

Neptune (ourdoor) Pool:

Guests were expected to be outside and active during the day, playing tennis, riding horseback, taking walks, swimming in either the indoor or outdoor pools, or viewing the animals in the private zoo. Most of the animals were given to zoos in the 1930’s except for some antelope and a herd of zebra that now numbers about 40. We had hoped to see them, but they were apparently elsewhere on the 2000 acres remaining of the formerly 309 square mile ranch.

I love the Biltmore Estate in Ashville, NC, which is about the same vintage as the Hearst Castle. But if a house that large can be called such, the Biltmore seems more like a home that was lived in, granted on a much larger and more lavish scale than you and I, but still livable looking. The Hearst Castle is impressive, but is more of a show place. I can imagine how valuable an invitation to spend a weekend there must have been. There are home movies of several movie stars staying at the Castle. Even they seem out of place and acting a part in these surroundings.

After our return to where normal people live, we started out along The One. For non-Californians, California State Route 1 is always called “The One” in conversation or directions. For most of its length, unless detouring around a military base or a couple of towns that are directly on the ocean, it runs along the base of the mountains or slightly up on ridges so that it winds along the coast with hills on one side the ocean on the other.

In places, the ocean is trying very hard to claim the land the highway runs on and there are cave in and washouts. The roadway has been reinforced in many areas, often more than once. The cost of maintaining this highway must be astronomical.

Most of the time if the coast line goes into a canyon or valley, so does the road, creating a corkscrew effect with many long looping turns. Once in a great while, a bridge spans one of the curves.

At times the one is very steep and has switchback curves. Of course the hillsides also would like to reclaim the land, and there are frequent slides and rock falls. Why would anyone want to drive this? It is the most beautiful place imaginable.

The fog had burned off the coast by the time we started, but still hung over the hilltops. The ocean was deep, deep blue, with bands of different shades of blue that would have looked faked in a painting, they were so bright and intense. There was enough surf to make it interesting, and send the waves crashing over shore-side rocks. We had a great deal of trouble by-passing even one of the pull outs along the way. We might have missed a great view or picture opportunity if we didn’t keep stopping. Needless to say, it did make the trip a bit longer.

We drove through the ocean side park in Pacific Grove. It is one of our favorite stretches of shore line, and we wanted to see it once more. Most of the storm damage we saw on the last visit had been repaired. Then we decided to drive the 17 mile drive in Pebble Beach. Seventeen Mile Drive is a commercial toll road that has stops along the way to view the ocean and other sights. There are also several famous golf courses for those who are into that sort of thing.

One of the stops along the way was open for the last two days this season. It closes from April 1st to the end of June because harbor seals use that area to raise their new pups. Fortunately for us a couple of the mother seals did not read the calendar correctly, so we got to see some babies. I could have stayed there for hours watching them.

In addition to the little ones, there were a couple of older juveniles who acted much like human teenagers. As everyone else was settling down for naps, they sere antsy and kept changing places, then deciding to go for a swim, then returning to annoy their elders. The annoyed adults rolled on a side and waved a flipper at them in a “go away” kind of motion.

I think we were on sensory overload by the time we arrived at our hotel in San Jose.