Hearst Castle

Description

This residential complex, now known as Hearst Castle and managed by the California Parks Department, was commissioned by William Randolph Hearst(1863-1951) from the architect Julia Morgan (1872-1957). It was built during the 1920s and was intended to serve as a residence for the tycoon and his then partner, the actress Marion Davies. What was originally intended to be a comfortable place to stay during his weekend getaways from San Francisco or Los Angeles became an extravagant building on La Cuesta Encantada (San Simeon, California), overlooking the Pacific Ocean, on vast grounds inherited from his father, George Hearst. 

W. R. Hearst used to refer to this estate as the ranch, but the truth is that his intention to transform this place in 1919 by building something different, as he told Julia Morgan:  ‘He wished for something a little different from what other people are doing in California’, gave rise to a fabulous construction that included a unique palace (Casa Grande), for the accommodation of the magnate and his family, as well as for the meetings and parties organised there; it also had other cottages, around it, for the accommodation of his guests, as well as two swimming pools (one indoor and one outdoor), playgrounds and a zoo. Hearst used some of the works of art he had acquired from all over Europe (ceilings, doors, windows, furniture, tapestries, carpets, grilles, paintings, sculptures, ceramics, etc.) to build and decorate this complex. It was, without a doubt, one of his most representative residences, as well as being one of the essential references of the Spanish Revival Style in the United States, a construction and decorative style that was very much in vogue in those years, mainly on the coasts of California and Florida. It is a residential complex inspired by Spanish architecture and arts in the times of the American conquest. The exterior façade of the building is eloquent: it attempts to recreate, in this case in duplicate, the bell tower of Santa María la Mayor de Ronda (whose location Hearst greatly appreciated for its beauty and beauty), and the bell tower of Santa María la Mayor de Ronda (whose location Hearst greatly appreciated for its beauty and beauty), as well as the façade of the palace of the Dukes of Arcos in Marchena, today installed in the Reales Alcázares in Seville.

All this was magnificently depicted, even in the form of an interesting film metaphor, in Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane (RKO, 1941), in which Charles Foster Kane becomes the alter ego of William Randolph Hearst.

Bibliography

• COFFMAN, Taylor (2003): Building for Hearst and Morgan, Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley.
• KASTNER, Victoria (2000): Hearst Castle. The Biography of a Country House, Harry N. Abrams, New York.
• LEVKOFF, Mary (2008): Hearst. The Collector, Harry N. Abrams, Nueva York.
• MERINO DE CÁCERES, José Miguel y MARTÍNEZ RUIZ, María José (2012): La destrucción del patrimonio artístico español. W. R. Hearst “el gran acaparador", Cátedra, Madrid.