Hearst Castle

Hearst Castle. Taken from the tour bus. It is about 5 miles up hill on a narrow, winding road from the visitor's entrance.

Entrance to a guest house behind me and gardens in front. All the statues are marble.


This is called the neptune pool. Very Italian Renaissance and all marble. The view from this place is amazing.

This is looking down on the Neptune pool.


The main house is to the left of the photo and is much more spectacular than this but this part of the house was added later possibly the 1960's


This place sports 18 guest houses. We only saw one and this was the view from the window!


Yeah so this is the main house. Over 100 rooms including 12 sitting rooms. We only toured a fourth of the grounds which is unbelievable.


In front of the main house is a courtyard with one axis looking out over the ocean...


And the other end of the axis overlooks the mountains. Hard to say which was more beautiful.


How about this for a front door!!! Inside this door was the evening room where everyone was expected to gather at 7 pm to await the evening meal. The pictures that I took inside didn't turn out very well because they don't allow flash.


As Hearst made his fortune in the news and media business and the home is fairly remote, he had his own movie theater. These are the light fixtures within. The whole place is somewhat of a contradiction. He collected ancient tapestries, artifacts, and materials to build this house so it definitely feels similar to a castle but yet it was built in the 1920's so there are light switches, ketchup bottles, and a movie theater.


The next stop is the pool house. The pool was 12+ feet deep with a low and high dive and every thing was tiled. The gold tiles are actually 22 carat gold sheets inlaid in tile.


On the way back down we got to see the zoo. He had cages for several types of bears that you just happen upon on the way back. All the area you see here was used for either cattle, horses, or exotic animals.