Our Trip to San Simeon
Hearst Castle is absolutely amazing. We took tour 1 which included the gardens, one guest house, both pools, and the ground floor of the main building. They say there is a million dollars worth of his art collection displayed throughout the house. This tour is recommended for first time visitors we were told. You do get to see a lot on this tour, but it is only the tip of the iceberg (sorry Titanic lovers).

The castle contains a main house, which has 115 rooms, three guesthouses, and 127 acres of land. The grounds and castle are located on a 1,600 foot mountain called La Cuesta Encantada, which means The Enchanted Hill. Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, James Stewart, Bob Hope, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, Dolores Del Rio, and Winston Churchill were among Hearst's A-list guests. Since "the Ranch" had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estate's theater usually screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions.Another highlight of the estate is the outdoor Neptune Pool, located near the edge of the hilltop, which offers an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house. Due to drought conditions and leaks in the pool, it is now drained. The Neptune Pool patio features an ancient Roman temple front, transported wholesale from Europe and reconstructed at the site. Although the main estate is now a museum, the Hearst family continues to use an older Victorian house on the property as a retreat — the original house built by George Hearst in the late 19th century. It is an amazing castle that you should definitely make a point of seeing someday.


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Page last updated August 2014