Hearst Castle

Hearst Castle

The Hearst Castle was everything I had expected. At the top of the 1600 foot hill with an expansive view of the ocean, it has many aspects of the chateaus of France. William Randoph Hearst was born into money, his Father made it in both mining (the Comstock again) and real estate. As a boy of 10, he went with his mother to Europe and saw the many sights of Italy, France, and Spain which were to be the inspiration of his castle later in life. He took over the running of the San Francisco Examiner when his Father was elected to Congress and turned that into a profitable enterprise and then an entire publishing empire. In 1919, at the age of 51, he decided to build a house on the ranch property where he had camped as a child. He enlisted Julia Morgan, California’s first woman architect to help him. Over the next 28 years, they built and rebuilt creating several cottages as well as the ‘castle’, which totaled 165 rooms. W.R. had become an art collector, and the house reflects that passion with many European tapestries, statues, and paintings. In addition, he bought whole ceilings and walls from churches and castles. We took the Grand Room tour which highlighted the Living room where he would receive guests, the dining room and the billiard room. Despite all those rooms, typically there would be 15 guest which included many of the movie stars of the day: Clark Gable, Charlie Chaplin, and others. They would spend their day horseback riding or swimming in the Neptune pool or Roman Pool and then have dinner with W.R. in the evening. As you stayed, your seat at the dinner table would gradually get farther away from W.R., signaling when it was time to leave. Truly an awesome place! Be sure to see the movie on how it was created before you leave.

Hearst Assembly Room

 

            We continued on our way. We tried to visit Mission San Luis Obispo, but parking was difficult – it was all pay parking at $1.25/hour and we needed 2 spaces, so we gave up and proceeded on to La Purisimia Mission State Historical Park. This was well worth the stop. The mission is in the hills and recreates what these missions would have looked like, a combination of the Spanish garrison, stables, garden, church, and workshops. Most of the rooms have been furnished with appropriate artifacts. Founded in 1787, it was destroyed by the 1812 earthquake and rebuilt. The CCC rebuilt the mission in 1933. The visitor center was closed, so we couldn’t take a tour, but we were able to walk around and get a good feel for the place.

La Purisimia Mission

            
By now it was 5 PM in the evening, so we drove through Solvang, which looks like a Danish village, we had hoped to stop and see the Hans Christian Anderson museum. Our camping spot is at the Cachuma Lake Recreation area, which is a huge county park and we actually have electricity and water for our trailer for the next 2 days.