Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a castle-like estate near San Simeon in the U.S. state of California, which was built in the 1920s by newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Location
Hearst Castle is located about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the peaks of the Santa Lucia Mountains in San Simeon. Below the property runs the California State Route 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway.
Description
The main house La Casa Grande (Spanish: The Big House ), with its twin towers, occupies the highest point and is surrounded by three guest bungalows:
- Casa del Mar
- Casa del Monte
- Casa del Sol
In addition, there are more than 30 meters long Neptune pool in the style of ancient Greece, which was built with green and white marble, an Italian temple facade and a neoclassical colonnade. Inside the Roman pool is with blue and gold Murano tiles.
The architecture is quite eclectic, but the most important influences came from the cathedrals of the Spanish Renaissance.
History
1919 Hearst decided to build a simple bungalow for himself and his girlfriend, movie star Marion Davies.
Hearst began in 1919 after his successes as a newspaper publisher, rebuild the family farm near San Simeon from a simple camp in a stately home. The huge estate was Hearst's father, George Hearst purchased 1865. Together with the architect Julia Morgan created Hearst until 1947 a $ 37 million -dollar palace with 165 rooms, numerous outbuildings, an outdoor and an indoor swimming pool, 127 acres of gardens, a small cinema and guest houses. Furthermore, belonged to the estate of the largest private zoo in the world, with a variety of exotic animals such as zebras, which can be seen grazing on the estate today.
Morgan and Hearst oriented to the construction of various European architectural styles (such as churches from different periods or Neuschwanstein Castle ), which was complemented by antiques and original buildings from Europe.
Hearst collected throughout Europe, to fill the more than 100 rooms, and then removes all the suites of Spanish palaces. In this construction project ever finished parts were torn out and replaced, to Hearst in 1937, ran out of money.
The wild 20s
In the 1920s and 1930s was Hearst Hollywood stars and starlets celebrated fly and regular parties. It was dominated by strict rules and firm practices to Hearst Castle, to which, without exception, all the guests had to hold; so for example, was expected that each guest appeared for the formal dinner, but during the day he was mostly left to themselves, while Hearst was taking care of his business. Among his most famous guests included Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, Rudolph Valentino, Cary Grant, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Calvin Coolidge and Clark Gable.
Current
In 1957, the Hearst Castle from the Hearst Corporation to " California State Parks " handed over for management, which offers daily guided tours for 20-25 U.S. dollars by the estate. Even today, members of the Hearst family may at any time use the property or even move back, but since there was a stop in the 1970s, the property is unoccupied. The building complex is now a National Historic Landmark. The museum with its impressive art treasures and its fabled history is indeed far from urban centers, yet attracts about a million visitors per year.
It is considered a model of the castle Xanadu in the movie Citizen Kane by Orson Welles.
The future of the plant and its eventual destruction after a fictitious disappearance of humanity (, USA " danger of collapse " 2010) shown in episode 5 of the second season of the docu-fiction series Life After People.
2014 turned Lady Gaga into Hearst Castle the video for her single GUY.