About a month ago, Brad got off work early, and we headed to Hearst Castle! It is about an hour north of Pismo Beach! We had a wonderful drive up there and were so excited to go exploring in a Castle!!
We got our tickets and took a 15 minute bus ride up to the top of the hill where the castle, guest houses, tennis courts, an old zoo, beautiful pools, and incredible landscape laid. It was beautiful! I will post some facts I remember about the castle. Google Hearst Castle if you want to find out more!!
When our bus first pulled up you could only see the castle peeking up through the trees.
This was our awesome tour guide! She was so cute!!
We had to hike up several stairs! I carried Aubrey in the Moby wrap! I felt like I was pregnant again! Haha
In 1865, George Hearst purchased land in California. In 1919, his only son, William Randolph Hearst, inherited the land from his mother, Phoebe. The ranch, by the time he inherited it, had grown to be 250,000 acres!!
So these were the beautiful front doors. We couldn't enter here because they wanted to preserve them and in the entry way there are ceramic tiles that are over 16,000 years old. The castle which was just one of Mr. Hearst homes, was built in the early 1930's.
Julia Morgan was hired to be the Architect of the castle and guest homes in 1919. It was pretty notable that a woman designed these beautiful buildings during this time in US History.
All of the detail was incredible!
The Castle, also known as the Casa Grande is over 68,500 square feet. It has 38 bedrooms and 42 bathrooms! (I wouldn't want to clean all of those toilets!) There are several additional rooms in Casa Grande including the Refectory, the Billiard Room, the Theater, Library, Gothic Study, Beauty Salon, Butler’s Pantry, Kitchen, Staff Dining Room for a total of 115 rooms. Our tour included the Reception Hall, Dining room, Morning room, Billiard room, and Theater.
The materials used to build the outside was Lime Stone and Teak wood.
So we entered in a side door of the castle to enter into the reception hall!
All of the artwork is the original artwork throughout the castle
Who would visit the castle and be in here for parties? Many famous hollywood stars, pilots (he had his own airport), and politicians visited including Charlie Chaplin, Amelia Earhart, Winston Churchill, and Calvin Coolidge are a few that I remember! Pretty incredible!!
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| My panoramic! Sorry the lighting isn't the best! You couldn't use the flash while on the tour! |
There were a bunch of hidden doors! Mr. Hearst would make his grand entrance through some of these when guests were visiting!
This was the ceiling in the reception hall. Every square was different and told greek mythology stories.
We then went into the dining room!
A typical setting! I loved the ketchup bottle!
These flags gave it a fun medieval castle feel!
These were seats that the Munks would rest on, but where hidden behind their robes, that made it look like they were still standing.
We then headed into the Morning Room.
We learned that many of visitors would sit in here and smoke. A fact that our tour guide told us that I thought was interesting is that people back then thought it was so healthy to smoke even during pregnancy. They believed that smoking would give the baby oxygen! (oh how they were wrong!!)
They are currently in the process of cleaning the ceiling. As you can see on the left it is red and clean and the right side is still covered from smoke damage.
Then we headed into the Billiard Room.
Lastly we went into the Theater Room.
These sculptures and wall paper were so interesting!
We watched some home videos of Mr. Hearst of what life was like at his Casa Grande!
Playing tennis!
Horse Back riding
Polar Bears at his Zoo!
He had a bunch of exotic animals that lived up on the hill! After Mr. Hearst Death in 1951, the animals were sold to local Zoos. Zebras are still seen roaming with the cattle on the Ranch!
After our tour, we were able to walk around the grounds for as long as we wanted! Aubrey slept the entire time in the Moby wrap so we enjoyed ourselves!
The grounds were so beautiful!
You can barely see us!
The BEAUTIFUL View!! You can see the landing strip down there and the pier down there also belonged to Mr. Hearst!
Aubrey and I on an balcony of the Casa Del Mar (one of the guest houses). Don't mind the statue in the background!! lol
California Poppies
Every thing had so much detail
Back of Casa Del Sol
Casa Del Monte (Guest House)
2,550 Square Feet, 4 bedrooms
The Neptune Pool!
Holds 345,000 gallons of water and has a depth of 3.5 feet to 10 feet deep! It was heated too!
Recently a California Earthquake caused a crack in the neptune pool and it was loosing 5,000 gallons of water a day! They kept replenishing it for display purposes but because of California droughts that is no longer an option! They will be repairing it this fall!
I loved these Lions that guarded the stairway down to the pool!
I think this was like changing area for the pool.
I bet these fountains are awesome when water is actually in the pool!
I felt like I was in Greece with all of these pillars!
Could you imagine seeing Zoo animals just roaming around this beautiful area?? How cool!
Casa del Sol
3,620 square feet with 8 bedrooms
All the Statues were awesome!
Casa del Mar, Where Mr. Hearst Stayed until the Casa Grande was finished!
5,350 square feet with 8 bedrooms
The back side of the castle
These flowers were my favorite!
Tennis Courts!
Lastly we went down to the Indoor Roman Pool.
In the entry way of the pool room! The gold was 22 karat.
The pool has 1,665 square feet Holds 205,000 gallons of water
Depth is 4 -10 feet deep
Looking into the bottom of the pool! It was so clear!
That there in the middle was a high dive!!
We then took a bus ride down to the car! We had a blast as you can see and Aubrey slept the entire time!! I love day trips and I can't wait to go back for another tour sometime!!
Remember how I told you there were Zebra's still roaming around on Mr. Hearst's land??
Well while we were driving back we saw some!!
Just roaming with some cows on the ranch!
Probably the coolest thing I have seen since I moved to California!
