This is significant because I need to leave at 5:45am to spend a few hours observing tide pools. In particular, I'll be studying strongylocentrotus purpuratus (aka purple sea urchins) in a small group while wandering through the intertidal zone. However, after the cold early morning jaunt, it's off to the Monterey Aquarium. Hurray.
Cambria is close to San Simeon, which is known as being the home of Hearst Castle. Hearst Castle has always seemed like a historical Disneyland to me, and until this weekend, I believed that Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was an accurate representation of Hearst's life. Taking Hearst Castle as a "Neverland" of the 1930s and 40s, it was a fascinating cultural study. Here's a 10 list about Hearst and his famous castle on a hill. It's by no means exhaustive, and I've tried to comb through my notes for items that may not be widely known.
1. Steinbeck and Hearst hated each other. (We actually visited Cambria and Hearst Castle because we were required to vacate our hotel in Monterey. They were previously booked, and this was the only way to secure the rest of our stay.) While we've spent the last few weeks examining working people in California, this allowed us to see a different side of California history.
2. Hearst was actually very liberal in his younger days, and he was head of the democratic party for 14 years at the beginning of the century. He advocated for workers' rights, and he thought he would be a great representative of the working man. He ran for mayor and governor, and he even had dreams of the White House, but he didn't win the elections.
3. Hearst believed (or at least stated) that he was democratic in his selections of artwork and architecture from around the globe because he shared his collections and estates with people who were not able to afford to travel to Europe. Of course, astute observers might argue that this is simply the justification of an obsessive shopaholic.
4. It was considered a scandal that Hearst never officially divorced his first wife, showgirl Millicent Wilson, even though he lived with his mistress Marion Davies for over 30 years. Wilson was Catholic and didn't believe in divorce. (Secret 11. She lived in the estate that inspired Fitzgerald's description of Jay Gatsby's estate in The Great Gatsby.)
5. Hearst was an "outrageous rich boy" at Harvard before he was expelled. He was editor of the Lampoon because his dad could help fund it. He was known to walk an alligator on a leash around campus. He once gave his teachers chamberpots with their names engraved in gold...on the inside.
6. Hearst hired Julia Morgan (another glass ceiling shatterer---look her up) as the sole architect on the project, and she worked on the building and landscape design for almost 30 years.
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7. Hearst didn't want to destroy trees in building Hearst Castle. He moved several oak trees from his patio because he didn't like the way they dropped leaves into his pool. This took many workman, 600 ton cement boxes, and several weeks of time.
8. Hearst had a zoo that he based on the "best German designs of the late 1800's." This meant that the animals enjoyed the luxuries of metal bars and cement floors. Among other animals, his animal collection included polar bears, penguins, lions, and zebras. The Hearst property still has zebra that graze with the black Angus.
9. Hearst had two libraries in the castle, a personal one, and an 80 foot long one that he shared with his visitors.
10. At his death, Hearst left 60 million in the Hearst Foundation to support the arts. He also donated the castle to UC Berkeley. They rejected it because of the cost of upkeep. The state took it instead with the stipulation that they could not sell the artwork. Currently, it's the only CA state park that makes money. (If you watch the slideshow, you'll also see that the state has the odd requirement that all of the fruit from the hundreds of trees that line the property must fall to the ground and be used for compost. The landscaping was beautiful, but in a state with many poverty issues, this seems like an unnecessary mandate.)
Any more you want to know? Other than that the aforementioned elephant seals are in the slideshow.
3 comments:
Why did Hearst and Steinbeck hate each other? and what did cambri and hearst castle have to do with you having a roof over your heads? What a place.
The hotel where we are staying in Monterey booked a large group at a higher price earlier in the year. The town fills with weekend tourists, and prices rise so much that it was worth losing our business for 3 weeks if we were unable to pay the higher weekend rate. So, we found somewhere else to visit.
Hearst and Steinbeck were both writers, so there may have been a clash of egos. But, Steinbeck wrote in his letters that he didn't like the way that Hearst ran his newspapers with more of an eye to profit than to telling news stories accurately. Steinbeck also preferred to examine life on the rougher edges of society, so and Hearst didn't have a lot of values in common.
That is an interesting policy regarding the fruit. I wonder if it has to do with pesticide use?
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