Visiting Hearst Castle
with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget and Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
My
family often visited Hearst Castle when Florence was small to get out of the
Monterey Peninsula (California) for the day.
After taking one of the castle tours, we would go to the Cavalier
Restaurant on the oceanfront for lunch and drive back on Highway 1 to Monterey.
These
days now that Florence is older, we drive from the Hearst Castle to the
Firestone Walker Brew Pub for fish and chips and sometimes take a tour of the
brewery to see what is new. The merchandise
store always has pint glasses, coasters, beer aprons, and rare edition heritage
beers.
At
Hearst Castle, there have always been separate tours of the main house,
gardens, and guesthouses. Hearst Castle
has added an art tour. (The art tour
cost $100 the last time we visited, but given the Hearst Family’s media empire of
250 magazines and newspapers, I think it might be a good tour to learn about
ideas that are used in advertising.)
You
still take a bus up the hill to the Castle and depart from various locations
depending on your tour.
There
are zebras wandering around the Hearst property and hillsides. I thought of the book D.V. by Diana Vreeland
as I listened to flapper music of the 1920s on the way up the hilltop.
Vreeland
was an editor at Harper’s Bazaar and
Vogue magazines. She wrote about zebras lining along the
roadway up to the Castle in her memoirs.
I wondered if she listened to music of the 1920s or was busy making
deals and setting up interviews as she rode up the hill.
The
tour guide we had that day started our tour off by saying Hearst came to
California with a dream and made a plan to obtain it. I am sure he might have revised some items
as he researched his road plan, but having a goal or 1 to 5 goals is okay as
far as I am concerned.
Our
tour guide started the main house tour with the following remarks that people
could use to make their homes more organized, comfortable, and relaxing albeit
on a smaller scale:
-In
the downstairs living room, Hearst gave people a place to relax before dinner
after walking in the gardens to get a break from city air.
-Hearst
let guests have 1 or 2 drinks before dinner, but no more. You could drink, but you could not get drunk,
if you wanted to make a deal on Hearst Mountain.
-The
Great Hall was based on an early Renaissance dining hall. (The cover of the cookbook – The Castle
Cookbook: Favorite Recipes of William Randolph Hearst shows this hall.) Renaissance tapestries line the walls for
decoration and to keep heat in the home.
Palio
flags hang over the table from the horserace in Sienna, Italy. The palio has been run since medieval times.
-New
guests always sat next to Hearst in the center of the banquet table and then
were seated down towards the table ends as they made their deals or
overextended their stays.
-The
tour guide said the Hearst Castle was totally self-sufficient in food.
I
bought “The Castle Cookbook” after the tour and agreed that you could raise all
items in it and eat a largely English diet with English breakfasts offered or
baked goods and coffee for breakfast.
-The
tour guide further stated that all food was served on silver plate with silver
covers on top of it.
In
the other rooms, we saw that Hearst had items to entertain himself in winter
such as a billiards room and a theatre.
He watched films every day with his guests. He probably had to edit magazine proofs all
day long and might not have read much.
Hearst
Castle is most well-known for its swimming pools that photograph well with
starlets. The indoor pool is made up of
lapis lazuli-colored tiles and gold. The
outdoor pool has Greek columns around it.
We
took the bus down the mountain. I headed
straight towards the bookstore and bought The
Castle Cookbook: Favorite Recipes of
William Randolph Hearst by Marjorie Collord and Ann Miller Lopez.
This
book is small, but I agreed that people who wanted to regularly eat English
food made up of English breakfasts, meal salads, meat and vegetable stews, fish
and chips, and fruit pies could be self-sufficient in food in California,
especially since irrigation is legal here for the wine and agricultural
industries. California is also the
largest producer of cheese in the US and has a ton of cider, too.
I
like to think of wealth like Hearst might have, too, but would add a supply of
beans and rice like the medieval Florentines and Milanese had and corn kernals
(seeds) like smart Americans have for long-term investment. For short-term investment, I take the French
as an example and like fresh eggs.
I
have always liked visiting Hearst Castle, because I come from a family of three
generations of female printers, who worked on rival newspapers and magazines.
Happy
Holidays!!!!
By
Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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