Hearst was inspired by the castles he’d seen on a European tour as a boy and wanted his home to emulate the palaces of Europe. Morgan was the first woman to earn a certificate in architecture at Paris’s École des Beaux-Arts, which, in addition to her degree in civil engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, made her an ideal match for the project.
Hearst and Morgan considered a number of architectural styles for the property. Spanish Colonial Revival architecture was popular at the time, but Hearst and Morgan opted for a slightly different type of Spanish architecture, adding different elements to make the castle’s style unique. According to Taylor Coffman’s Hearst Castle: The Story of William Randolph Hearst and San Simeon, the pair was drawn to the Cathedral of Santa Maria la Mayor in Ronda, Spain, and used it as inspiration for the design of the towers that accentuate the main house, Casa Grande. Gothic and Neoclassical features were also brought into areas of the estate, and Hearst purchased architectural elements such as Moorish doors and an 18th-century ceiling from an Italian palazzo.
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In The Golden Days of San Simeon, author Ken Murray describes the castle’s piecemeal construction process, which added to the exorbitant cost. “The building of San Simeon was extremely difficult and expensive because it was not planned functionally from the start. It seemed to grow in an endless mosaic style to suit the housing needs of Mr. Hearst’s vast collections of art objects and to satisfy his memories of decorative arrangements he had seen in the castles and cathedrals of Europe, which he wanted to duplicate in his own palace.” Also adding to the difficulty was the home’s Central Coast location.
The first elements of the hilltop estate to be completed were the three guest houses that surround the main house: Casa Del Mar, Casa Del Monte, and Casa Del Sol. The structures each have a different view and vary in size, with Casa Del Mar the largest at 5,350 square feet. Hearst used Casa Del Mar as his own residence while Casa Grande was under construction. The guest houses appear to be single story structures, but Morgan designed the homes with multiple levels going down the hillside.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
