Hearst Castle

This weekend, the hubby and I are driving down from Northern California to Southern California to attend my good friend Jim's wedding to the ever lovely Liza! They are such a precious couple, I can't wait to see them at the wedding on Sunday!

Until then, however, I'll document our trip!

We left Thursday evening after work in San Francisco. We drove all the way down to within five miles or so from Hearst Castle, our planned activity for Friday!

Hearst Castle is a wonderful place to visit if you love architecture and luxury. Here's a link to the Hearst Castle website.

William Randolph Hearst, as many of you may know, was VERY rich. He had the moolah to build this castle which cost roughly $10,000,000 back in the 1940's (I think. I was snapping almost 200 pictures during the tour). It took 20+ years to complete, The stats of the house were crazy - something like 50+ bedrooms and 60-something bathrooms...or was that fireplaces? It felt as if there was a fireplace in every room!!! He started building in his late 50's with the help of architect Julia Morgan.

(By the way, the hotel we stayed at Thursday night was The Morgan Hotel. It was very quaint, cute and affordable. Obviously it was named after Julia Morgan, the Hearst Castle architect).

This is the view on our way to Hearst Castle from our hotel. I love the coast of California. I'm not a beach person, but I'm an ocean person. Does that make sense?

From the visitors' center, our tour group took a bus up to Hearst Castle. It was another five miles up the hills/mountain to the castle on windy roads. On the way, we found out that Mr. Hearst loved animals and kept, at one point, the largest private zoo in the world. He had lions, tigers, bears... =) no, seriously, he did! His animals roamed the hills as well, and we caught a glimpse or two of deer while driving back down after the tour.

I am not going to post all my pictures of our Hearst Castle tour. I'll just post enough to give you an idea! We took pictures from one of the many, many grand views from the house. Could you imagine having that type of view?

This is a picture of Neptune's Pool. At first they were just going to make a family pool, but when it became apparent that the house was constantly going to be full of people - movies stars, politicians, etc., they ripped out the pool twice-ish and finally settled on this pool. It is AMAZING!!!

Here's another view of the pool from above.

Here we are outside of the Casa Grande (the main castle portion). Doesn't it look like a church?

Here's another shot of Casa Grande. That's the front door of the house.

The Hearst Castle Living Room. Check out the giant fireplace! I asked the tour lady if Citizen Kane was filmed at the Castle, and it did not appear so.

Hearst loved art and architecture which was a result of an earlier year and a half long trip to Europe with his mother. His estate had tons of art all over.

This was his dining room. Not too shabby! By the way, if the pictures aren't the clearest, it is because I wasn't able to use a flash (Castle policy), so I did the best I could without a tripod!

Since Hearst also made movies and stuff, he had an actual theater in his house.

This is Mr. Hearst himself. I guess back in the day, movie theaters did more than show movies. This is Mr. Hearst's public appeal for people to support US industry.

Our tour conlcluded with an indoor pool. It was an amazing thing as well.

Apparently, the floor had gold in it. Here's a picture of Eli and I standing on gold.

The indoor pool also had a diving platform. The pool was only 10 feet deep, though. Not sure if I would've jumped from it.

It was a marvelous house, really! They have four tours. Ours did not entail the second floor or Mr. Hearst's bedroom. They also have evening/night tours during certain months. If you have the chance, definitely drop by! Oh...I'd recommend budgeting a couple hours and getting your tickets ahead of time.