San Simeon: The Hearst Castle Tour

The Hearst Castle tour is trip back in time to the 1930's, Hollywood's glamour days, when an invitation to spend a weekend at William Randolph Hearst's "ranch" was coveted by celebrities.

As our tour bus chugs up the five-mile hill, we pass the grassy fields where Hearst housed the largest private zoo in America. The bus drops us off in front of the Castle, where Bob, our tour guide, waits to greet us.

Bob talks to every guest, noting their hometowns and working that information into his Castle commentary. (“No pool as big as this in Podunk, right?”) A large man with a ranger hat and squishy black tennis-shoes-disguised-as-dress-shoes, Bob sucks us all in with his booming voice and love of Hearst’s Castle and grounds. He has the special personality of a long-time tour guide—thirty-one years—infinite patience and charm.

Hearst’s Neptune Pool, as dramatic as I have seen in photos, glimmers in the heat. The pool is surrounded by Greek or Roman pillars and marble statues. The confluence of scents mingling in the garden rises up to my nostrils, creating a single, pleasing perfume. The tour group walks through one of the four-bedroom guest houses, Casa del Sol. Period clothes are hanging in the bathrooms or lain out on the short beds. (Were people that much shorter in the thirties?)

In the main house, Casa Grande, Italian church chairs are built into the walls of the long living room in the main house. Above the chairs hang grand tapestries, all hundreds of years old.

The dining room features an endlessly long, set for ten guests in the center. The packaged Hearst Castle tour does expose a weakness of the man, lest we think they are covering something up. Bob reveals Hearst’s scandalous love of low-brow ketchup. The elegant table is set up with ketchup and mustard at reachable intervals on the table to prove it. Would he have used the more sophisticated “catsup”?

We walk through the billiard room and the indoor pool, magnificent with blue and gold leaf tiles. The indoor pool, built underneath the outdoor tennis courts, is empty, exposing the delicate blue tile pattern on the bottom.

San Simeon, California: The Hearst Castle

William Randolph Hearst’s life and majestic home are immortalized in Orson Welles’ great movie Citizen Kane. The Castle, called “Xanadu” in the film, was never completed during the lifetime of WR Hearst (aka Charles Foster Kane).

Gene and I arrive at San Simeon, home to the Hearst Castle for a tour. Citizen Kane and the documentary about its making, The Battle Over Citizen Kane, reveal much more about Hearst than the sanitized National Geographic film we watch at San Simeon’s Welcome Center.

The promotional film emphasizes Hearst’s love of the central California coast and the story of Hearst’s childhood. WR Hearst’s father strikes it rich in silver mining and he purchases the huge expanse of land shortly after. Hearst’s mother takes her ten-year-old son to a long Grand Tour of Europe. The old countries spark his life-long passion for ancient art, sculpture and architecture.

Little Willie grows up and makes a few bucks of his own, turning the San Francisco Chronicle into a newspaper empire. Today, the San Francisco Chronicle is one of the papers most in danger of shutting down in the changing media environment.

When Hearst inherits the land, he begins building the Castle, stuffing it full of sculptures, tapestries and other art he gathers from around the world. He supervises every detail of project, sparing no expense and redoing some of it at whim. He refashioned the Neptune Pool three times.

The National Geographic film ignores the existence of Hearst’s longtime girlfriend, Marion Davies, who played an important role as de facto hostess of the Castle. The film also skips the financial troubles Hearst faced at the end of his life, where Davies proved she became more than a gold digger.

Hwy 1: Carmel to Big Sur

I figured out how to use the “Sports” setting on my camera this morning, so I go overboard taking photos from the window of the moving PT Cruiser. I’m trying to keep the side view mirror out of the view finder, but it’s tough. I have to hold the camera dangerously far out of the window.

As we approach Big Sur, the coastline changes. It’s more rugged, the trees bigger. I get a small sense of the large beauty of Big Sur. I watch people leave their cars to begin hikes and imagine how much more beautiful Big Sur is on the interior. This is the part of California that bewitched writers like Henry Miller, Hunter Thompson and Jack Kerouac.

We plan an early lunch today at the scenic Nepenthe restaurant and then to reach the Hearst Castle in San Simeon in time for our pre-purchased 3:20pm tour.

Nepenthe is built into the hillside. There is an outdoor café, Kevah, and several shops. We browse the shops with a growing group who is waiting for the restaurant to open at 11:30. We could eat at Kevah, but I think it’s worth the wait for the better vistas upstairs.

Finally, at 11:30 and not a minute before, the restaurant opens and we are seated on the back patio. We sit at a counter that faces out, the best seat in the house if you’ve come for the views.

A retired couple who live in San Francisco sits on my left. A bird with a vibrantly blue body lands on the rail a just a couple feet in front of me. I wait because I don’t think can get my camera in time. But the bird isn’t moving, so I make a slow grab for the camera. He taunts, then flies off and I miss the photo. The four of us watch the trees for another opportunity, but the bird never comes close again.

Our new friends warn us it will take the remainder of the day to get to San Simeon. We’re skeptical, but since they are Californians, we put weight in their advice. The stretch of road past Nepenthe twists and turns like a go-go dancer. Signs for upcoming curves seem redundant. We can only drive about 25 mph.

This part of Highway 1 is tough driving—many places are marked “Rock Slide Area” The surprise of what is behind each treacherous turn is the reward. We pass the Whale Watching Café, 30 miles north of San Simeon. How often does the cafe deliver on its promise, I wonder.

In some places, the grass is clumps of straw. We pass one construction area where workers are installing fencing to guard against imminent-looking mudslides. The water in this area has a stained-glass effect.