Hearst Castle

Yesterday was a day of vacation karma.  When I got to Hearst Castle the next tour was 1:40 and it was currently 11:20.  The tours have now been broken down into little pieces.  You have to buy multiple tours to see the whole house, it never used to be like this but budget cuts have driven them to this.  Any way I went to buy tickets to see the grand rooms and the upstairs rooms.  Well because I was a single she got me onto the 12:00 tour so I could take the 1:30 tour as my other tour.  When I went to the bus to take me up to the castle itself they put me on the 11:40 tour again because I was a single.

My first tour was for the grand rooms.  This included the Grand Salon, Dining Room and Game Rooms.  Hearst was a compulsive collector but he bought most of his collection through the auction houses of New York.  He didn't steal the items from Europe, they were stolen by other people.  Each of his four homes were decorated in a different style, the Castle, which he referred to as a ranch, is done in a Mediterranean style.  It is a very heavy style and makes the rooms very dark during the day but the docents say at night the lights create a lovely golden glow.  The dining room could seat what looks like a million but the funniest part is the ketchup and mustard bottles and paper napkins on the table among all the elegant table settings.

I killed time until my next tour by taking pictures of the grounds and the outdoor pool.  They had lounge chairs around the pool for you to lounge on so you could feel like a guest at the Castle.  It was wonderful.

The second tour was the top two floors where all the bedrooms are.  There are 42 bathrooms in the house so some rooms have 2 bathrooms.  The second floor is mostly guest rooms and the guest library.  The third floor has Hearst's room as well as Marion's room with Hearst's private library between them.  It turns out that Marion was very talented as a comedian and a producer.  Hearst wanted her to be a dramatic actress but her expertise was in comedy.  She wound up as a millionaire.

We even saw a home movie of them entertaining some of their "friends".  Cary Grant took most of them.