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An American Castle

For newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, his home (one of dozens) really was his Castle. Having toured Europe as a boy Hearst developed a passion for European architecture and art.

In 1919, at the age of 60 he began work on fulfilling his life long dream of building his own castle. His castle, know as Hearst Castle, was built on a 250,000 acre estate on the Pacific coast of California half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It ultimately included 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.

Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and ’30s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Calvin Coolidge, William P. Clark, and Winston Churchill were among Hearst’s A-list guests.

[Show picture list]

Hearst Castle became famous and 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.

Hearst Castle was eventually donated to the state of California, thus allowing non “A-list” folk like me infiltrate the castle for the price of a $30 tour ticket.

Next Stop – The American Riviera – Santa Barbara, California

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 12:16 am and is filed under California. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

One Response to “An American Castle”

Citizen Rain Says:
July 14th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Interesting fact about Citizen Kane. Randolph Hearst threatened to sue Orson Welles for ‘yellow journalism.’ Welles used the name ‘Rosebud’ (what Hearst called that dancing hussy from NY) so that if it did end up in court his extramarital affair would be revealed in public domain. Touche!