The story
In 1898 the newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst bought two paintings by the French academic painter Jean-Léon Gérôme. One shows the young Napoleon on horseback in the Egyptian desert, alone before the Great Sphinx of Giza. Gérôme had shown it at the Paris Salon of 1886 under the title Oedipus, and it is still here, in the house Hearst later built on a hilltop above the Pacific.
Hearst Castle is primarily a historic house, but it is also home to a vast art collection. From 1919 to 1947 the architect Julia Morgan, the first woman to pass California's architecture licensing exam, worked on it with Hearst, who said he wanted a museum of the best things he could secure. The main house, Casa Grande, has twin bell towers modelled on a Spanish church. Inside, whole pieces of old Europe were fitted into new walls. The Gothic Study sits under a 14th-century Spanish ceiling, and the dining hall is lined with 16th-century Spanish choir stalls. Hearst also gathered one of the great private collections of ancient Greek vases.
Hearst died in 1951. His company gave the estate to the State of California, and it opened to visitors in June 1958. It is run today as a state historical monument, and the tours lead past the Neptune Pool, set before the front of a Roman-style temple, and down to the indoor Roman Pool, lined with blue and gold glass tiles.
