page_title: Hearst Castle
section_title: Estate
hierarchical_section_title: Hearst Castle / Estate
caption_attribution_description: English: A spectacular sunset graces the pier and peninsula at San Simeon.
context_page_description: Hearst Castle, San Simeon, is a National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmark located on the Central Coast of California in the United States. Conceived by William Randolph Hearst, the publishing tycoon, and his architect Julia Morgan, it was built between 1919 and 1947. Known formally as "La Cuesta Encantada", and often referred to simply as San Simeon, Hearst called his castle “the ranch". His father George Hearst had purchased the original 40,000 acres estate in 1865 and Camp Hill, the site for the future Hearst Castle, was used for family camping vacations during Hearst's youth. In 1919 Hearst inherited some $11 million and estates including the land at San Simeon. He used his fortune to further develop his media empire of newspapers, magazines and radio stations, the profits from which supported a lifetime of building and collecting. Within a few months of Phoebe Hearst's death, he had commissioned Morgan to build "something a little more comfortable up on the hill", the genesis of the present castle.
context_section_description: Hearst Castle is located near the town of San Simeon, California, approximately 250 miles (400 km) from both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and 43 miles (69 km) from San Luis Obispo at the northern end of San Luis Obispo County. The estate itself is five miles (eight km) inland atop a hill of the Santa Lucia Range at an altitude of 1,600 feet (490 m). The region is sparsely populated because the Santa Lucia Range abuts the Pacific Ocean, which provides dramatic vistas but offers few opportunities for development and hampers transportation. The surrounding countryside remains largely undeveloped. The castle's entrance is approximately five miles north of Hearst San Simeon State Park.
  At the height of Hearst's ownership, the estate totaled more than 250,000 acres. W. C. Fields commented on the extent of the estate while on a visit; "Wonderful place to bring up children. You can send them out to play. They won't come back till they're grown". Some 23 miles to the north of the castle, Morgan constructed the Milpitas Hacienda, a ranchhouse that acted as a trianon to the main estate, and as a focus for riding expeditions. In 1957, the castle and its contents, with 120 acres of the gardens, were transferred to the guardianship of the California State Parks Department. In 2005, the wider setting for the castle was protected by a conservation arrangement between the Department, American Land Conservancy and the Hearst Corporation which aimed to preserve the undeveloped character of the coast. Years earlier, the writer Henry Miller had described the Big Sur area as "the California that men dreamed of … the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look". Miller's comment echoes an earlier observation on San Simeon made by Bernard Shaw; "This is what God would have built if he had had the money". The agreement reached between the state and the family has not been without controversy. The deal, which saw the Hearst family receive $80 million in cash together with $15 million in state tax credits in exchange for ceding development rights on the majority of the estate, has been criticized as being too generous to the Hearsts, and for restricting public access to the estate. The deal's sponsors disagreed, Mike Chrisman, California's then Secretary for Resources, describing the agreement as "a landmark effort ... and a big deal for the state, for Hearst Corp. and the family and the public".
caption: Sunset at San Simeon Bay
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