HEARST CASTLE Exclusive Night Tour Experience SAN SIMEON Travel Guide

[Music] well hello my friends it's your old pal Jordan the lion well our road trip continues and today we're going to one of my favorite places in the world Hearst Castle now I've logged Hearst Castle a couple of times before I've been here a couple of times but I've never got to do this tour what we're gonna do tonight is something they only do on during the springtime and during the fall and this happens to be during that time so we are going and doing what they call the night tour now the night tour is where they actually have people dressed up and they portray Butler's maids cooks and they recreate what a night at the Hearst Castle would have been like if you were a guest of mr. William Randolph Hearst and we are going to his Xanadu days with Jordan the lion begins now it's definitely a beautiful scene here off the coast of San Simeon no question about it you can see why he loved being out here his family used to camp out here when he was a little boy not in the water we have arrived we've arrived I love it well for decades William Randolph Hearst and his architect Julia Morgan worked on this property and never finished we're gonna go up and experience something very few ever got to experience you know it just dawned on me I have my top hat for tomorrow night what better place to wear it than Hearst Castle family's feelings about this special place were apparent and the Spanish name they gave to the estate la questa Encantada the enchanted him I don't know who's gonna be here and what they're gonna be dressed in that's a mixed bag every time but they tell me we've got quite a few docents here tonight so it should be quite a vibrant experience you're welcome to interact with them go ahead and ask them questions they might ask you questions I don't know what they've got up their sleeve the Randolph Hearst is America's first true multimedia mogul by the time he starts this project in the 1920s with Lady architect Julia Morgan he owns 28 newspapers 8 radio stations he publishes 12 different magazine titles and he's got his own a film production company cosmopolitan studios that would eventually produce over a hundred and seventy feature-length films so that's his connection to Hollywood and that's how he's able to afford a little something like this and that's what he called it he called it a little something on the hill he wanted to build a modest country home this little side project as he pitched it to Julia Morgan turned into a 28 year collaboration and shortly before William Randolph Hearst passed away he estimated he was about halfway done building here on the hilltop let's go ahead and give him another 28 years and just imagine what this place would look like actually his son Bill jr. said go ahead and give the man another 28 years he'll still be halfway done because for William Randolph Hearst there is no end in sight for this project there is no final rendering as to how it would supposedly look like it was an iterative process and the guests who were invited here well they were quite surprised when they got here because your invitation was not to Hearst Castle William Randolph Hearst advised you capital you'd be going to Cardiff Wales where he owns a nine hundred year old Norman castle on the Glen Morgan coast that's called same donat it's now Atlanta college most guests would come one of three ways maybe you're one of the lucky ones like Howard Hughes or the airplane racer Roscoe Turner simply fly your own airplane down to mr. versi airstrip and then take a chauffeur driven car to the top of the hill or maybe you're gonna come by boat mr. Hirsh yacht bo9 I would dock down in San Simeon Bay one of the only natural deepwater ports on the coast of California and a prime reason why his father and George Hearst bought this property back in 1855 back in 1865 George Hearst bought about 40,000 acres of land paid $30,000 for it William Randolph Hearst was inviting the elite of Hollywood he's inviting the sports stars of the day the politicians mr. Hearst wants to build an observatory over on Reservoir Hill that's on the south side of the property so he invited Edwin Hubble to help him help design a telescope the guest list it goes on and on but during that time period the 1930s what's happening in the United States around the Great Depression is yeah absolutely and the people that were invited here and mr. Hearst himself were they affected by the depression not really I mean in some ways they were financially mr. Hearst did have some hardships but generally speaking on a day to day basis those people weren't suffering now in their day to day life they would go out and they would see people in public suffering out in bread and soup lines so coming here out in the middle of nowhere on the Central Coast of California was a way to get away from it all whole property taxes because California state law back then said that until your house was completed you never were levied property taxes so by keeping this an open construction zone mr. Hirsh never paid the property taxes but when he dies it transfers hands and then the state of California starts charging property taxes and then of course keeping this place up the way it's looking now takes your generosity of a ticket purchased thank you very much if you forgot to bring your bathing suit mr. nurse would have you covered unfortunately you're probably not going to be too pleased with your bathing suit because mr. Hirsh Victorian sensibilities really don't catch up to fashion when it comes to the bathing suit so you're gonna be wearing the old version from the 1920s a lovely one-piece job for both men and women often going down to the knees and the elbows sometimes had a high collar anybody know what those old bathing suits were made out of [Music] the pool itself is 104 feet long 10 feet deep on the deep end three and a half on the shallow end and you just might be able to imagine somebody like five-time Olympic gold medal swimmer and Johnny Weissmuller doing a little backstroke in this pool he was a guest here he's not only a five-time Olympic champion he's the first talking Tarzan of those he's the one who came up with the Tarzan yell the guy just said that lady gaga I phoned one of her music videos here and made so much money that she donated a half million dollars to the restoration of the tomb pool including that Venus statue that goes in the thin air you would certainly see works of art we're going to see antiques you might even see a few pieces of antiquity across from us is the temple facade a collection of Roman Empire fragments the guy just said that that is Neptune that is 400 years old it was owned by Giuseppe Verdi they all get their Spanish name by the view you have looking out of the front of the house so Casa del mundo you have the view of the mountains Casa del Sol has a view of the Setting Sun and Casa Del Mar well as if you haven't seen it is the largest of the three guest cottages it's an 18 room three-story house 5350 square feet Casa del Sol is about 3,600 square feet and the smallest guest cottage well that's Casa del Monta at 2500 square feet you can fit that guest cottage into the living room of Casa Grande maybe Assembly Room 345 thousand gallons of mountain spring water naturally filtered by five rock and gravel chambers underneath suspended section of the floor he had his own hydroelectric water source all the pressure for the plumbing all gravity-fed no pumps involved just nice and slow sounds like a simple coil [Music] and holding the Romans what they would do is the chest piece that's made out of red verona limestone that's a stable piece they would knock the heads off all the time because generals come and go mister first baseman there's a vault full of mink coats and he's gonna load her a mink coat while she's staying there if he thinks she looks good in the mink coat she gets to take it home with her when she leaves kind of a nice perk of being a guest here Three Graces is a copy of Antonio Canova Three Graces Antonio's Canova's original sculpture is in the Louvre in Paris the guide was saying that Harpo Marx was a guest here one night and went and got of three different mink coats and put them on the statues out here oh this is great I've never actually been in this house this one always gets left out whenever I've been here [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] and just another task stepper so in the room we want to get all of us into this first bedroom temporarily I mean this one has both a shower and a tub not all the rooms have tubs they thought that they were getting cleaner in a tub than they might in the shower and just just the opposite now mr. Gerst is a married man this bedroom right here used to be his wife's bedroom when they were still together but they separated in 1925 in 1925 they separated Thanksgiving because mr. Gerst tells his wife and family that he has urgent business to attend to in Hollywood and everybody in the family knows where he's going it's going to see the actress Marion Davies from that point on Marion Davies is mr. Hurst very romantic invisible companion and she's your hostess for activities so we've got to get ourselves ready and over to the assembly room there's cocktails are about to start and we do need to meet our hostess now unfortunately we don't have any big create Marion Davies here in fact nobody is portraying anything specifically specific personality they're just representative of mr. Gerson yes being as though the light bulb fixtures are embedded into the cast plaster ceiling that is gilded in 22 karat gold then you know that it was wired for electricity to muster I don't know one hat is over there and I believe the other gentleman yeah he's got his hat over there but ladies you spend an inordinate amount of time pinning that hat to your hair sometimes it's worn off to the side with a little bit of attitude you don't have to remove your hat when you're in the house also ladies will often wear gloves and the outside of their gloves will be their jewelry so when it comes time for dinner they can still keep their gloves on but gentlemen if you have a pair of gloves on they've done it removed and put next to your place setting at the table this was mr. Hearst intended bedroom here at the hilltop but in 1927 third floor of Casa Grande is completed the Gothic suite is finished perky and Marion Davies he moves up into that suite we'll get a chance to go through there later on the tour and this once again becomes a guest cottage but this was the one room that mr. Hurst actually lived here full time in the only time he lived here full time was between 1944 and 1947 outside of that this was largely a vacation home here and not first he would keep his visitation under six months a year so that he could avoid paying California state income taxes now cocktail hour typically started around 7:30 at night you pre-ordered your cocktails you liked a pink lady and you'd like a martini you'd let the staff know and that drink will be ready for you when you arrive the drinks are not terribly strong here mr. Hurst has a notorious tight grip on the alcohol he doesn't want his guests over indulging and making a fool of themselves Cary Grant said if you wanted more than one cocktail you better show up on time and drink fast do you been given the British actor said wine float like glue at dinner time [Music] by a nice view of mr. Hirsh front yard pretty much everything that you can see from the hilltop except for the big blue thing these are the oldest pieces in mr. Hearst collection here at San Simeon these four statues range in age from 3,200 to 3,500 years of age they're all of Sekhmet the warrior goddess the right hand of raava son gotta be pretty sure that a couple of these statues came from the tomb of Amenhotep the third mama no chapter third was buried with over 700 stashes of Sekhmet one for the rising of the setting of the Sun each calendar day is also the grandfather to king tax yeah now you have a couple of quick shots at the front door of the house when was a 16th century convent gate from space it is gilded in 22 karat gold and that's kind of the rule of thumb around here if you see something that looks like it's gold most of it is 22 karat gold leaf and just to remind them not to touch they very much appreciated now normally Jeff's would walk right through that front door but on the other side of that front door is a nearly 2,000 year old Roman marble mosaic we're not gonna walk on that moat that you will get a chance to see it as we make our way through the Assembly Room there's more modest entrance over here on the south side [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right for the assembly lineage not only for cocktails but it's also for playing games popular games back then poker dominoes mahjong and a little game that came out from Parker Brothers in 1935 called monopoly yeah Marion Davies mr. Hirsh girlfriend was said to be such a good monopoly player that her niece peppy letter said nobody could beat her she was probably a better monopoly player off the board than on it she was one of the first people to invest in property in California in fact that's where mr. Hearst passed away was in her Beverly Hills home now that helps for sale right now apparently it's also the home where they shot the Horsehead scene from The Godfather you have a spare hundred and ninety five million dollars that home could be yours room for cocktails right around 7:30 at night and mr. Hearst is probably not gonna be here he's still up in his office working on his business ventures [Music] very close distance and how acute and [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] / Dolores hope the wife of Bob Oh little tiny circles here in this room afraid to touch anything it wasn't American TV show for the box that sees candy is not for her the piece that she felt comfortable in one around this way [Music] you're coming into cocktail hour mr. person is going to show up and enjoy the festivities and at some point Hector continuing I'll take Aryan by the arm no signal to the bar 16th century Flemish they come from modern-day Belgium the right around 500 years old they tell the stories was a meal apricots a Roman general who's bought berries the second Punic War the two tapestries on either end of the room are 17th century fridge that one was done based on a template done by the artist made open peter paul rubens altar meals were served here in the refectory into the dining room and dinner was typically a four or five course meal mr. Gerst set right here in Marion a static Rasika it was usually Marion's job to put together the seating assignments so you would come in he would find your name to play along with you play setting would be attacked up menu and at the bottom of that menu to tell you what we show instead of for mr. Hearst dining room was also a surprise to many guess what they expected to see when they got here especially after seeing the home itself there's something maybe a little bit more fancy than this you've got Stowe where instead of fine china regular glasses instead of a crystal you've got paper instead of linen napkins and you've got condiments coming right out of the jar it's believed by many that this setup is a reminder of those days you were a cop first came here because mom and dad they used to eat out more time intensive camp overnight now when I say camp an outdoor tent don't think of the way that you and I went camping or would go camping they had really large campus that attends with with the framers raised wooden floors Persian rugs rolled out on the wood floors and real furniture inside their tents mother at the age of 10 ten-year-old boy with such a mania for antiques proteomics from Dublin Ireland paid around 1903 about 10 pounds of sterling silver a ceremonial waste is used in a government or parliamentary situation as a show of force or power so if you want to put a law on the books and basic ratification right in front of the mix and it's no surprise that this base is right behind us together in fact been against would ask mr. Kerch why do you sit in the middle of the table but if you sit at the head of the table like a true homeowner and gentleman and he said well if I sit at the end at the table I really only have two maybe four people I can talk to if I sit here in the middle of the table and immediately got a five and then stretch it out to nine did that disturbing anybody at the table and by the way where ever I said that is friends the purchase time for many of the pieces in the collection we do have some of that documented but vast majority of the collection was a lot to fill out the house okay this was a transitional room in the house it's called the boarding room they call it the morning room because it faces east and it's built with the light of the Rising Sun it was often used after dinner it was often used after the movie now how cool would that be you go see a movie at mr. Hearst theatre or when you walk out you get to talk to the actors and actresses that were in that movie next to Johnny Depp and watching Pirates of the Caribbean right mr. Hearst was not a smoker but many of his guests were smoking was actually recommended to be good for your health in those days now if you missed out on one of the earlier meals of the day breakfast or lunch and you get hungry along the way you're allowed to make your way into the pantry and fix yourself a snack but technically you're really not allowed to go into the kitchen and just whip up yourself a grilled cheese sandwich but I'm gonna give you an opportunity to walk through that kitchen and see what the staff had to work with how long I've never been here either never been in the kitchen Hacha smell so it smells like cinnamon rolls in here [Music] now mr. Hirsh doesn't have a tight grip on the booze here at the Untied hard liquor and wine they are well metered out with beer taps who doesn't mean a double kegerator in their kitchen I mean really when it comes down to it beer taps are open all day long folks beer is not just for breakfast anymore [Music] [Music] [Music] you know No [Music] Harold excelled in science working live apart from this that's water so it would be hot as a trainer he would take them to the bath of water then bring it back [Music] [Music] but around the hilltop proper are all sorts of orchards apple orchards stone fruit orchards olive orchards their pomegranate trees here their quince persimmon a whole host of things the pergola that you may have seen them on your way up on the bus ride that cement pillar structure with the wooden camping that was covered with espalier fruit French style plums and peaches all along the side and grapes from the canopy above so you'd ride your horse through that shaded section and pick fruit and your inner portion when Calvin Coolidge came here with his wife Grace Grace was in the library when the call for cocktails came it's in the elevator presses the button they go down to the first floor and the elevator gets stuck in between the first and second floor she's not terribly upset she just happens to have some knitting in her purse so she sits down on the floor of the elevator goes about her knitting figuring somebody's gonna come after her at some point well 45 minutes past nobody's come after her so she begins to yodel in the elevator that alerts somebody downstairs they go to the basement cranked her down the stairs and when she gets out she's not upset that she missed a cocktail she's not upset that she was stuck in the elevator she's upset that her husband didn't know she was missing maybe twelve men to carry this rug up here to the library Wow the Hearst library you know as far as that goes we can't really point to any specific cigarette damage yeah yeah there are quite a few burn marks in the kitchen and unattended cigarette here yeah and I'm 10 cigarette there if it had happened to a Persian rug and there's a few too many of them they're just simply going to replace the rug mr. Hurst gave many of his staff rent-free accommodations so they didn't pay rent they were paid exceedingly well they were fed so he got free room board and a good payroll so most of his staff would stay working for him for upwards of 20 years an incredible opportunity to get a job working for William Randolph Hearst Billy 8 said I was so well taken care of working for mr. Hearst that I went to San Luis Obispo every year that I worked for him and I bought a brand-new car I paid cash for it during the Depression that's something a housekeeper elsewhere in California simply couldn't say Conrad who wrote heart of darkness Stephen Crane who wrote The Red Badge of Courage Jack London who wrote called a while and Mark Twain were all employees of William Randolph Hearst they worked for his newspapers as correspondents Mark Twain was actually a much better friend of his father George than he was of William Randolph in fact Mark Twain and George were drinking buddies Mark Twain said of George Hearst before he gave the eulogy at his funeral he said there's not a thing I can say that would add a blemish to the man's reputation other than the fact that he's responsible for William Randolph which in my opinion is probably one of the best backhanded compliments of all time now beyond this being a library very obviously a library this was also mr. Hearst wardrobe room for his costume parties at least once a year he would throw a lavish costume party they would bring racks and racks of costumes from the film production companies in Hollywood they would set him up here in the library the guests would come up pick up their costume mr. Hearst would have a seamstress and tailor here to personally fit the costume to you and then they would do skits and plays or reenactments according to the theme of party for mr. Hearst guests very few of them who were just the average run-of-the-mill guests got to go up to the third floor that's mr. Hearst private suite and his office only business associates went up to his office on the third floor the screenwriter Frances Marion said the Gothic study was kept under lock and key we have these strict humidity regulations that you have followed in terms of protecting the collection especially with the books so we keep the air circulating it keeps the humidity between about 39 and 51% is our threshold most modern museums our temperature control but being as of this is not only world class museum but a historic home adding air conditioning is one of the last things that we will probably do you would have business meetings up here like I said if you're not a business associate you probably never saw they don't expect conference table would be used for those business meetings and mr. Hirsch sat in the chair with the two finials on top a high-powered meeting might take place at the octagon table to get this portrait then again mr. Hirsch sits in the chair of the two finials on top his portrait is a William Randolph Hearst at the age of 31 it was done in Munich Germany by a childhood friend of mr. Hearst his name was Oren impact the panels that go in between the arches are 15th century Spanish panels in their original orientation they were in a flat orientation mr. Hearst had the construction workers fed him into sections and camera them so you get that vaulted field the paintings that are done on the arches marked biblical paintings done in the Gothic style you're familiar with the Bible count over to the second arch where we're standing go up to the peak on the right-hand side you see the guy holding the dagger that's the story of Abraham he's getting ready to sacrifice your side any other questions here in the Gothic study and once you're done looking in one room they go ahead that is his bathroom and changing room well mainly changing room here's his bedroom which I have I have been in here before it's kind of crazy too he gave himself like the smallest room in the house [Music] his ashtray and I think that's his mother I'm not mistaken you sure you had a picture of his mother in here yeah that's his uh that's his bed and then straight across the hall was Marion Davies room oh that's his changing room there's a lot of energy and this was mariaandeva sermon on the coast of California it's often foggy so if you gather which I have I have logged this before and this was her room this was Marion Davies room it's really dark in here sorry about that look at the arches above her door that's an interesting-looking dresser now one of the things that mr. Hirsch loves to do while he's working at night is he likes to write poetry he'd often put variants name in the poetry [Music] okay now we're going into this theater [Music] [Music] so he's just telling us that if you if you're retiring in at your last day here they let you they let you dive off the Roman dive up there in full uniform that crazy above the lights the five lights is the Roman plunge he takes a high diamond platform diving into you can clip people and the mosaic is designed to turn your reality upside down so it's you're diving into the pool you're diving into the stars in the night sky well you're green who's the creatures of the sea do you have a seat above all right guys so I was in an extreme hurry to get out of Hearst Castle so I couldn't do a wrap up there but honestly it was a fun tour but if you've done the tour before I don't feel like going at night wasn't any different than taking it during the day so I actually felt like my vlog today is pretty much very similar to other Hearst Castle videos that I made before but it's still worth going if you've never been there it's totally worth it [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Daze with Jordan the Lion

Views: 146,475

Rating: 4.9106812 out of 5

Keywords: daily vlogger, travel vlogger, urbex, golden age, hollywood, urban explorations, abandoned, old hollywood, history, tourism, cinema, filming locations, abandoned places, adventures, forgotten, family friendly, the carpetbagger, daze with jordan the lion, jordan the lion, daily vlog, vlog, vlogger, vlogging, lifestyle, scandals, film, comedy, los angeles, hearst, hearst castle evening tour, hearst castle, william randolph hearst castle, marion davies, william randolph hearst, san simeon, tour

Id: eofc60os9T8

Length: 39min 57sec (2397 seconds)

Published: Thu May 24 2018