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| Kit Fassett | profile | all galleries >> Hearst Castle | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
You ride a bus of the hill about 1600 feet above the Pacific Ocean from the visitor center. We are off the bus and begin the climb up the steps to the Castle.
When Hearst inherited the family's 250,000-acre ranch in 1919 following his mother's death, he wrote Morgan complaining of the rustic conditions at "Camp Hill:" "Miss Morgan, we are tired of camping out in the open at the ranch in San Simeon and I would like to build a little something."
What Hearst originally had in mind was a "Jappo-Swiss" bungalow, Kastner said, then popular in Southern California. But as he and Morgan started work on "La Cuesta Encantada," or, the Enchanted Hill, as the 127-acre estate came to be called, their vision evolved to encompass something far more grandiose.
That architect is Julia Morgan, California's first licensed female architect. Over the course of her 47-year career, Morgan designed more than 700 buildings in California alone, including several YWCA buildings, the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, and the former St. John's Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, now the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts.
The main dining hall at the castle, my favorite room. The dining room, called the Refectory, resembles the style of the middle ages, as did much of the castle with Roman sculptures and architecture.
The long dining table accommodated the many guests regularly invited to the castle. Each setting was arranged for multiple courses and wines.The formality of the Refectory and dining table place settings was contradicted by the always present mustard and ketchup bottles on the table.
The stories explaining the use of the condiment bottles and jars rather than condiment serving dishes mostly revolve around speculation of William Randolph Hearst's idiosyncrasies.
The dining table was originally from a Spanish church. Mr. Hearst loved to converse with people and decided that this narrow table would be great for sparking conversations. He would always sit in the middle with the newest guest. Consequently, as you stay longer, you move closer to the end of the table, and people joked about that it means you are overstaying your welcome when you are at the end of the table. In fact, one of the guests joked about being in the hot seat where he lost more calorie from the heat then he took in at dinner because he was so close to the fireplace.
These are flags used for horse racings. Each flag or banner represents a different city ward in Italy. They represent the wards that participate in the horse race that is held to this day. I may be wrong but the horse race is called "The Palio di Siena", held in the city of Siena, Italy in Tuscany. Mr. Hearst thought they were interesting and decided to use them to decorate his dining room.
The Hearst Castle Refectory is very grand, large in scale and filled with rare museum-quality furnishings. The room measures 67 feet long and 27 feet wide. The walls rise 27 feet to an ornate carved wooden ceiling, which originally belonged to a 16th century monastery in northern Italy. The walls of the room are lined with Gothic Flemish tapestries and paneled with 15th century choir stalls from a Cathedral in Spain. Silken Italian flags known as Ward banners, some over 400 years old, hang between the French Gothic windows. An enormous French Gothic fireplace gapes at the end of the room, the largest of 38 fireplaces in the Castle. The dining tables are monastic refectory tables. Pieces of Hearst’s large antique silver collection can be seen throughout the room.
Despite its valuable antique tapestries and museum-like decor, the food served at Hearst Castle was somewhat rustic. Hearst had always envisioned the castle as his “ranch residence,” which meant that the meals were comprised of fine quality comfort-style foods.
