2002-06-25 - 11:27 p.m.
Hearst Castle continued...the interior. Tour 2. This is the tour that takes you into Hearst's private areas....his bedrooms, his studies, the places he would eat breakfast or dinner.....I picked this tour because I wanted to get a true sense of how he lived.....and you do get that idea. Even though much of the castle was designed by the architect Julia Morgan, you get the idea that this man knew what he liked, what he wanted. The place is filled with the things he loved and collected.....not with things someone else picked for him (which so often happens today, when people hire interior decorators....this is a big beef with me.....that people hire decorators who pick out their whole decor...they have no attachment to anything in the whole house!..... this is clearly not the case here....you'll have to trust me on this...I know the pictures make it look like a movie set or something, but he collected antiques with a passion...and his home was filled with objects of his desire.)
The Library was where Hearst spent a lot of his time.....and what an amazing place it is! (I think our whole apartment would fit in there.) The ceiling, like many rooms at the castle, was elaboratley carved. The view was incredible. I could live just in this room!! And again, my picture just does not do it justice!
After the Library, they take you up into the bedroom areas. Now here it gets sort of confusing, because there are so many different rooms...sitting rooms, dressing rooms, bed rooms, etc. As I recall, Marion Davies and Mr. Hearst each had their own bedrooms....separated by a sitting room....(and the sitting room was actually divided into two rooms). The next two pictures should give you a speck of an idea of what part of a sitting room and one of the dressing rooms were like.
Then they take you up to the Celestial Room. It was impossible to take a picture that would do this justice....so you'll have to live with the picture below. But this room was incredible! It was the room at the top of the tower I showed in yesterday's post. Just big enough for a bed....arched windows all around....all done up in gold! Oh! This would be my room! (As a side note: my guess is, this room was where the "nookie" took place. To be proper, they each had separate bedrooms....they had to, since Hearst's first wife wouldn't give him a divorce....and this was way back...in the way back , when sleeping together was taboo.......but the Celestial Room was just up a winding staircase from both of their rooms.....soooo....hmmm......)
The tour finally ends at the indoor pool....and you don't want the tour to end. Even though I took about 12 million pictures....I didn't get enough! You think..."it can't be over!?" but then it is! It's so amazing. I'm dying to go back!!!!
Well....tune in tomorrow for one last bit....including The Madonna Inn. Goodnight for now!
2002-06-24 - 9:54 p.m.
Hearst Castle, part 2. Well...after the pool, it gets more and more difficult for me to explain or give you a sense of what this place is like. The thing I found to be interesting about it was that even though it is so sprawling with sooo many rooms....each room (well, the whole place really) had an intimate and cozy feel about it. I was expecting it to feel intimidating and snooty, but actually, I felt that I could really make myself at home there. (Of course, my Love points out that only I would find it homey or intimate or cozy.....because I've spent the last last 10 years (until I moved to California) living in a warehouse...that I converted into a living space. Well, I say that doesn't count!)
Anyway......next on the tour is the guest house....Casa del Sol....
This is where many of Hearst's illustrious guests....Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Hedda Hopper, Greta Garbo and the like....would stay while visiting the Castle. Most of them would be flown in to the private airport on the property....and once unpacked in their luxurious rooms, each guest had two servants on call for their every need. (Yes....I could live here!) However, Hearst had some rules for his guests....one, which I find particularly disagreeable....no alcohol was allowed in the guest rooms!!! (and I hear he was a bit stingy on the alcohol in general....but to his credit, the alcohol he did serve, was the good stuff) And, of course, there was the unspoken rule: "don't overstay your welcome." Legend has it, the longer you stayed, the further away from Hearst you were seated at the massively long dining table in the Refectory!
Well, I'm going to let the remaining pictures speak for themselves....to try to give you some idea of the detail and feeling of the place.....but you're really just going to have to go there and see it for yourself. Tomorrow...I will address the interior more...the bedrooms in particular.....stay tuned!!!
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