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Better known as Hearst Castle it was once the home of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. Today it is a state Historical Monument, it's richness and beauty preserved by the California park Service. The castle is usually open for tours daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day.

Directly across the street from the entrance is San Simeon State Park, which features a fishing pier and a public park.

Location-Directions

Hearst Castle is located on California Highway 1, about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Driving time from either city is four to six hours, depending on traffic and road conditions.
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From Los Angeles (254mi)
Take U.S. Highway 101 north to San Luis Obispo. Follow signs to California Highway 1. Continue on Highway 1 north for approximately 50 miles.

From San Francisco
Take U.S. Highway 101 south to California Highway 46. Turn right (west) and continue to California Highway 1. Turn right (north) and continue for approximately 22 miles.

If you plan to use Highway 1 along the Big Sur coastline, be aware that it is not designed for freeway speeds and may be partly or completely closed during the rainy season. Be sure to allow plenty of time, as tours leave promptly at the time printed on your ticket.

• Via US 101: 3.5 hours. CA 68 east to Salinas, US 101 south to CA 46, West to CA 1 and north about 13 miles. 165 miles (264 km).
• Via CA 1: 4 hours. CA 1 south. 95 miles (152 km)

From San Diego: 8 hours. Interstate Highway 5 north to Interstate 405, US 101 north to San Luis Obispo, CA 1 north about 40 miles. 364 miles (582km). 8 hrs

Facilities - Activities
The Hearst Castle Visitor Center is located at the foot of "The Enchanted Hill", right off Highway 1 and houses the following facilities:

• W.R. Hearst Exhibit
• Food Services
• Gift Shop
• Museum Gift Shop
• National Geographic Hearst Castle Theater
• Ample Parking for cars and recreational vehicles

Tours
All tours include a half mile walk and 150 to 400 stairs. Daytime tours take about 1 hour and 45 minutes, including bus trips to and from the Visitor Center.

• The Experience Tour/Tour 1 is recommended for first-time visitors.
• Tours depart from the Visitor Center by bus at the time printed on the ticket. An audio tape program provides background information during the 15 minute, 5-mile trip to the Castle.
• To start your tour, you will board a bus at the Visitor Center that takes you to the Castle at the top of the hill. At the end of each Tour, you must go back down to the Visitor Center on the bus, even if you have tickets for another tour. Allow at least 2 hours between tour starting times.

Since all the tours entail considerable walking and stair climbing, you should wear comfortable shoes. Although Tour 1 is considered the least strenuous, tours are not recommended for persons with crutches, walking aids, or medical problems such as heart conditions.

All tours include the Neptune Pool, a Greco-Roman outdoor pool, and the Roman Pool, an indoor pool lined with Venetian glass and gold.

Photography
California State Parks encourages visitors to take photographs provided they do so only for personal enjoyment and without the use of tripods or flash.

History
Hearst Castle was built on a 40,000 acre (160 km²) ranch that William Randolph Hearst's father, George Hearst, originally purchased in 1865. The younger Hearst grew fond of this site over many childhood family camping trips. He inherited the ranch, which had grown to 250,000 acres (1000 km²), from his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, upon her death in 1919. Construction began that same year and continued through 1947, when he stopped living at the estate due to ill health. San Francisco architect Julia Morgan designed most of the buildings. Hearst was an inveterate tinkerer, and would tear down structures and rebuild them at a whim, so the estate was never completed in his lifetime.
The indoor pool, modeled after Roman baths, with gold mosaic tiles.
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The indoor pool, modeled after Roman baths, with gold mosaic tiles.

The estate is a pastiche of historic architectural styles that Hearst admired in his travels around Europe. For example, the main house is modeled after a 16th century Spanish cathedral, while the outdoor pool features an ancient Roman temple front transported wholesale from Europe and reconstructed at the site. Hearst furnished the estate with truckloads of art, antiques, and even whole ceilings that he acquired en masse from Europe and Egypt. Hearst Castle was like a small self-contained city, with 56 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 sitting rooms, 127 acres of gardens, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, a movie theater, an airfield, and the world's largest private zoo. Zebras and other exotic animals still roam the grounds. Morgan, an accomplished civil engineer, devised a gravity-based water delivery system from a nearby mountain. Some of the highlights of the estate include the Neptune Pool, which features an expansive vista of the mountains, ocean and the main house.

Invitations to Hearst Castle were highly coveted during its heyday in the 1920s and '30s. The Hollywood and political elite often visited, usually flying into the estate's airfield or taking a private Hearst-owned train car from Los Angeles. Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, the Marx Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, Joan Crawford, Calvin Coolidge, and Winston Churchill were among Hearst's A-list guests. While guests were expected to attend the formal dinners each evening, they were normally left to their own devices during the day while Hearst directed his business affairs. Since "the Ranch" had so many facilities, guests were rarely at a loss for things to do. The estate's theater usually screened films from Hearst's own movie studio, Cosmopolitan Productions. Hearst Castle became so famous that it was caricatured in the 1941 Orson Welles film Citizen Kane as Charles Foster Kane's "Xanadu." The estate is shown as a gloomy and ridiculously self-indulgent barony.

One condition of the Hearst Corporation's donation of the estate was that the Hearst family would be allowed to use it when they wished. Patty Hearst, a granddaughter of William Randolph, related that as a child, she hid behind statues in the Neptune Pool while tours passed by. After a room in the estate was bombed in the 1970s during her crime spree with the Symbionese Liberation Army, no member of the family has ever returned to live there. However, the media has enlisted Hearst family members for publicity purposes, as when Patty Hearst hosted a Travel Channel show on the estate in 2001, and Amanda Hearst modeled for a fashion photo shoot at the estate for a Hearst Corporation magazine, Town and Country, in 2006.