Hearst Castle

Last weekend I visited a truly Californian tourist destination, the San Simeon home of the late William Randolf Hearst. Known informally as Hearst Castle, Mr Hearst himself would never have referred to the property that way, mainly because he actually owned a castle in Wales. To Mr Hearst, this was always the ranch. In fact, it was the smallest of his ranches, 250,000 acres, pretty small when compared with his big ranch of a million acres. A ranch it may have been to Mr Hearst, but it certainly looks like a castle as you wind up to the Enchanted Hill.


There are three "little" houses on the property, each with multiple bedrooms and bathrooms for visiting guests. The smallest of these is Casa Del Sol, at 2,604 square feet or 242 m². To put that into perspective, you could park my house in it 3 times and still have room for the cars.

Then there is the big house, Casa Grande. It is 60,645 square feet or 5,634 m². The smallest guest house would fit in the living room, and the facade is styled after a Spanish Cathedral. Everything about it is impressive.

The imposing structures, museum quality exhibits and landscaped gardens would be remarkable enough, but there is more to the Ranch than the bricks and mortar. It's also such a good story. Our tour guide, Russ, brought the experience alive for us as he guided us through our first day at the Ranch guests of Mr Hearst in the 1930s. Urbane, gregarious, funny and immensely well-informed, Russ is a retired American diplomat who now amuses himself by painting vivid pictures of the 1930s for those lucky enough to pretend to be guests of William Randolf Hearst. I may be slightly biased due to the fondness that Russ expressed for the Australian people. Apparently, while still in service as a Diplomat, he had an Australian secretary who made quite an impression on him. She even taught him how to pronounce "Australian" correctly - the first American I've ever heard do so.

Actually, all the people who worked at the ranch seemed unusually ... well ... happy. It was a little disconcerting. Everybody smiled, even the security guards. The guides seemed excited by the subject and their enthusiasm was contagious. Even the bus drivers went above and beyond the call of duty, slowing down to point out interesting animals from the collection of sheep, goats, cattle and zebra still roaming the property. Even after the tour finished and we'd been packed back onto a shuttle bus, Russ and Ruth (the assistant guide on our tour) waved a cheerful goodbye.

Oh, and those bells in the towers are real. They're connected to a piano in the main house. If you look closely you'll notice that only 36 of the keys are available. That's because there are only 36 bells. Guests were encouraged to play the bells, Russ told us, but only between 10am and 2pm, because those lattice windows under the bells are actually guest bedrooms. More about those later.