Hearst Castle: Four Hours Inside One Man's Imagination
- Jul 25
- 10 min read
Updated: Aug 5
Tour Hearst Castle through the stories of William Randolph Hearst, Julia Morgan, Marion Davies, Hollywood legends, and the unforgettable rooms that make California's most famous estate so extraordinary.
I thought I was coming to tour a mansion. Four hours sounds like a long time for a house tour. It wasn't.
In fact, I booked two different tours because there was simply no way to absorb it all in one visit.
I left feeling like I'd spent four hours inside one man's imagination.
Hearst Castle isn't really a house. It isn't even a castle. It's somewhere between a European museum, a luxury hotel, an obsession, and the world's most extravagant game of "I'll take one of those too."
Ten minutes into the bus ride, the familiar voice of Alec Trebek suddenly filled the speakers. I hadn't expected that. Somehow hearing his calm voice narrate the winding climb made the experience feel oddly comforting. I realized how much I still miss him.
There was one small catch to booking two tours. Once the first one ended, everyone had to board the bus back down the mountain—even those of us turning right around for another tour.
The road going to the houses twisted higher and higher through ranch land until suddenly the towers appeared on the hill.
Hearst Castle walking to the entry. Hearst Castle San Simeon CA Hearst Castle grand entry.
It's impossible not to wonder what guests thought the first time they made this same drive nearly a century ago.
In 1865, George Hearst purchased 50,000 acres in San Simeon, California for 75 cents an acre and maintained until he died that he had “overpaid”.
The land was used primarily for cattle grazing and horse breeding. George took his wife Phoebe and son William to visit “Camp Hill,” climbing the rugged cattle trails to the top of the hill by horseback and wagons hauling supplies and spending weeks camping under the stars, often taking two to three hours to reach the top.
Long before luxury safari tents became Instagram-worthy, it must have been the original glamping. The elaborate setup included platform tents, Persian carpets, silk tent coverings, and porcelain dishes. All brought up by ranch hands.
William never forgot those summers.
When William was eleven years old, his mother Phoebe took him on his first trip to Europe.
Seeing castles.
Churches.
Ancient statues.
Ceilings.
Roman ruins.
He fell in love with antiquities.
When William was 27, his father George passed away, leaving his entire $18 million estate to Phoebe. Not William. That’s roughly $663 million today. George bypassed his son because he realized he may have had a spending problem, forcing William to subsist on his monthly allowance provided by his mom of $10,000 per month and the revenue from his first newspaper, The San Francisco Examiner. By the way, that’s equivalent to $368,000 per month by today’s standards.
Poor boy.
William asked his mom for the hilltop property so he could build a little getaway and stop camping.
She refused to let William build because she knew he'd "get carried away."
Apparently, both parents were well aware of their son’s spending habits.
Phoebe passed away at the age of 76. William was 56. Two weeks after she died, he walked into Julia Morgan's office in San Francisco and said he wanted to build ‘a little something’.
Then spends the next fifty years recreating his favorite pieces on a California hilltop.
That's not collecting. That's fulfilling an eleven-year-old's dream.
Every outrageous idea William Hearst dreamed up had one person responsible for making it structurally possible: Julia Morgan.
Julia Morgan wasn't just America's first licensed female architect. Long before Hearst Castle, she had earned Phoebe Hearst's trust designing homes, schools, and philanthropic projects throughout California. Phoebe became one of Julia's earliest patrons, so by the time William decided to build "a little something," he wasn't hiring a stranger. He was turning to the architect his mother had trusted for years.
Julia spent nearly three decades translating Hearst's endless ideas into reality. Not only did she design the buildings, but also the gardens, terraces, pools, ceilings, and overall vision.
Every time he wanted something changed...she figured out how to build it - quietly, elegantly, without drama.
She visited the estate on weekends, earning just $35 per site visit. Hard to imagine, considering she was designing one of the most extraordinary homes in America.
We had a lively young guide who made every story come to life.
Once you step off the bus, you’re told not once, not twice, but three times: no gum, no colored drinks, no touching anything. Period.
Only the hand railings.
Touch with your eyes.
One minute I was admiring what looked like a pretty fountain tucked into the gardens. The next, our guide casually mentioned it was an authentic Egyptian monument - roughly 3,000 years old.
Only at Hearst Castle does a priceless ancient artifact end up as... garden décor.
By the time Hearst Castle was taking shape, he had amassed more than 20,000 works of art, antiquities, and architectural treasures from across Europe. He bought so much that he eventually needed a five-block warehouse in the Bronx, where an entire staff cataloged his purchases. Every so often he'd send an agent overseas to track down a particular piece, only to discover he already owned it - sitting in a crate back in New York.
Hearst wasn't simply decorating a house. He was recreating the Europe that had captivated him as an eleven-year-old boy.
William had 5 boys (including a set of twins), so summer holidays needed activity. He built the Neptune pool for them - a simple idea at first.
But then Hearst kept saying...
"Let's add this..."
"And that..."
"And another temple..."
"And more statues..."
And eventually you end up with what many consider the most famous swimming pool in America.
Temple facade at the Neptune Pool featuring Neptun and nereids sculpture group at Hearst Castleu Neptune pool Hearst Castle Neptune Pool Hearst Castle
If you've ever thought, I've seen this somewhere before, you're probably have. The Neptune Pool has appeared in countless movies, television shows, fashion shoots - even Lady Gaga's "G.U.Y." music video.
My first tour was the Grand Rooms - and Grand is an understatement. The Assembly Room is lined with six Belgian tapestries dating back to the 1500s, originally from Louie XIV’s palace. Today, those pieces are valued at $30-$60 million.
Assembly room in Hearst Castle Massive fireplace in the assembly room.
A lot is happening in that room. The walls are wrapped in carved wooden choir stalls salvaged from 16th-century churches, dark and intricate and impossibly old.
And tucked into a corner sits the most valuable piece in the entire Castle: the Torso of Venus - an ancient Roman fragment dating back to the 1st century BC. Of course it is.
This was the room for entertaining guests. By this point, William's wife had chosen to remain in New York and let him live his life as he pleased. He had a public relationship with silent-film star Marion Davies, who became his permanent hostess.
When Marion’s drinking became a concern, William quietly limited alcohol and replaced cocktails with iced tea, lemonade, and light wine spritzers. But cocktail hour wasn't really for cocktails - it was for Monopoly. Marion loved the game and was known as the Monopoly Queen. No one could beat her. It's easy to picture her keeping the weekend lively while Hearst disappeared into his study to run his publishing empire.
Guests joked that San Simeon was “a dry house with mandatory board games.”
The expansive dining room centers around the Refectory table, which seats about 22 guests - Hearst always in the middle, Marian across from him, and everyone else ranging from Hollywood stars to politicians, writers, and business leaders.
One guest recalled that on his first night, he sat next to Hearst. The second night, he was moved one seat over. On the third night, two seats. By the fourth night, he realized he'd be eating on the floor - and it was time to go home.
Hearst preferred intimate dinners - though 'intimate' is doing a lot of work at a table for twenty-two.
And dinner wasn't exactly quiet. Hearst apparently enjoyed yodeling. Marion Davies entertained.
Charlie Chaplin performed silent mimes.
Imagine attending that dinner.
The private movie theater was one of my favorite surprises. The lights dimmed, and our guide played a short vintage clip of Hearst, Marion, and Charlie Chaplin at the Castle - a little glimpse into what life here actually looked like.
The room itself felt less like a screening room and more like an old Hollywood movie palace, complete with velvet curtains and plush seating. Guests at Hearst Castle didn't just watch movies—they often saw them before the rest of America.
With Hearst's newspaper empire and Marion Davies' Hollywood connections, the latest films would be screened here for an audience that included celebrities, politicians, and other influential guests. It was easy to imagine the lights dimming, conversations fading, and everyone settling in for a private premiere.
I walked into the billiards room expecting... well, pool tables.
Instead, my eyes went straight to the ceiling. The richly painted wooden beams - centuries old and imported from Europe- completely stole the room before I even noticed what I had come to see.
Then I finally looked down.
The room held not one, but two billiard tables. One was a traditional English snooker table.
The other was a French billiards table with no pockets whatsoever.
As our guide explained the rules, I quickly realized this was a game of angles, precision, and strategy far beyond my skill level. I decided I'd happily admire the craftsmanship and leave the playing to someone else.
The Grand Rooms tour concluded where both of my tours would eventually end—the spectacular Roman Pool.
Roman Pool Hearst Castle Roman Pool Hearst Castle
When you enter, the only word that comes to mind is wow. It feels like stepping into another world.
The first thing I noticed wasn't the water.
It was the floor.
Tiny cobalt-blue glass tiles covered every inch, and the shimmering gold patterns weren't paint at all—they were made with 22- to 24-karat gold leaf encased within the glass mosaics.
I found myself looking down...
then up...
then back into the water, where the entire room reflected like a mirror.
Eventually I stopped trying to decide where to look. Seeing it again at the end of my next tour didn’t lessen the impact one bit.
As reluctant as I was to leave, everyone was ushered back onto the bus for the ride down the hill. Years ago, guests taking multiple tours were allowed to remain on the grounds between departures. Unfortunately, a few visitors couldn't resist treating priceless history like a souvenir, so today everyone heads back to the Visitor Center before beginning again.
The return trip offered glimpses of empty animal enclosures—the quiet remains of what was once William Hearst's private zoo.
At its peak, the collection included zebras, antelope, bison, kangaroos, camels, and dozens of other exotic animals from around the world. When Hearst's financial empire began to crumble during the Great Depression, the zoo was one of the first luxuries to disappear. Many of the animals found new homes in public zoos. Not all of them left.
The descendants of Hearst's zebras still roam the surrounding ranch today, and if you're lucky, you might spot them grazing alongside cattle on your drive to or from the Castle.
Twenty minutes later, I was climbing the winding road once again, listening to Alec Trebek narrate the history for a second time. Honestly, I didn't mind. If you're going to hear the same voice twice, his isn't a bad choice.
The second bus approached Casa Grande from a different direction, giving me an entirely new perspective of the Neptune Pool before we climbed the stone staircase toward the private guest suites. This time, the stories felt more personal. With a different guide and a different angle on the pool, it was fun hearing insights from someone who has walked this property countless times.
The upstairs guest suite had hosted one notable visitor: Winston Churchill. Churchill admired Hearst, even while gently poking fun at him. After spending nearly a week as his guest in 1929, he wrote to his wife, Clementine, describing Hearst as "a grave simple child - with no doubt a nasty temper…playing with the most costly toys."
Guest Office Hearst Castle Ceiling in Guest Office Hearst Castle
Standing in the middle of Hearst Castle, surrounded by medieval ceilings, Roman sculptures and Belgian tapestries, it was hard to argue with the description.
Before entering William's private suites, we passed through his Gothic Study - his personal library and executive boardroom, where he worked late into the night running his publishing empire.
William Hearst Office & Boardroom William Hearst Boardroom and Office
One detail surprised several people on my tour: William Hearst and Marion Davies had separate bedrooms connected by a short hallway. A few people whispered how odd that seemed.
My first thought?
Of course they did.
If I owned a 165-room castle, separate bedrooms would be one of my first design decisions.
William's bedroom was surprisingly restrained by comparison to the rest of the house. It still held valuable artifacts, a carved four-poster bed, an impossibly medieval painted ceiling, and a portrait of his mother watching over it all.
William Hearst Bedroom Portrait of William Hearst's mother Phoebe
From there, we stepped into a room that had once been nothing more than storage. Our guide said, almost casually, “This used to be storage”.
Storage?
No.
Let’s turn this into one of the most spectacular libraries in America.
That’s William.
But forget the books for a second.
Where do your eyes go?
The ceiling.
Then the arches.
Then the lanterns.
Then finally...
"Oh right...there are books."
The room feels almost theatrical - less like a library and more like a medieval great hall where someone just happened to leave a few thousand books lying around.
At the far end, Hearst's portrait seemed to say, I have another idea.
And he did.
“Let’s turn the two bell-tower sleeping porches into more bedrooms.”
Picture the scene.
Hollywood's most feared gossip columnist arrives at Hearst Castle. She gets her favorite room in the bell tower - not because it's the biggest or the fanciest, but because every evening the setting sun streams through those carved windows and scatters little points of light across the room. She nicknamed it The Sparkle Room.
She adored it — even though it had no air circulation, and no closets. Hedda Hopper's solution? Hang every dress from the chandelier.
Then the next guest arrives, sees hangers dangling from the chandelier, and naturally assumes..."Oh. This must be where everyone hangs their clothes."
The stories this house holds are as priceless as the artifacts themselves.
If walls could talk.
As the bus wound its way back down the hill one last time, I found myself thinking less about William Hearst than Julia Morgan.
Hearst supplied the imagination.
Julia supplied the possibility.
Every impossible arch.
Every carved ceiling.
Every garden overlooking the Pacific.
Every library.
Every pool.
Every room that began with Hearst saying, "Let's add one more thing..."
Exists because Julia Morgan quietly figured out how to build it.
Hearst may have dreamed the castle.
Julia made sure it would still be standing a century later.
Walking through Hearst Castle felt less like touring a historic landmark and more like stepping inside someone’s imagination — an imagination made real by a woman whose brilliance quietly shaped every arch, every ceiling, every room. I left with a deeper appreciation not just for the grandeur, but for the collaboration that made it possible.
Some places stay with you long after you’ve left.
Hearst Castle is one of them.
See you somewhere delicious.
Stamped by Tracey - Worth the Journey.
