Hearst Castle
Congratulations to Dena Walton, you are the winner of Virginia Kantra’s Sea Witch. I’ll be contacting you for your snail mail address (or you can email me on skully at skullybuzz dot com if you see this first) and mailing out your prize!
This time let’s do a Silhouette Nocturne, Unbound by Lori Devoti. I love the Nocturnes, they remind a bit of the old Shadows Silhouette did back in the 80s. I have a complete set of those! So, post a comment, (you must type in your email address) and I’ll enter you in the drawing for Lori’s book. I’ll also add you to my newsletter for updates on all the fun stuff and releases, too. I’ll announce the winner on the February 23rd blog! Good luck!
So remember, I went to Hearst Castle with my family? Here’s the scoop.
We took two tours. The first one was the main tour that shows you the downstairs rooms, including the dining room. I love all the tapestries Hearst collected, especially as I do needlepoint myself. Hey, maybe in 500 years, they’ll be saying “and this is a 20th century tapestry by Jasmine Haynes.” The second tour was up the upstairs, Mr. Hearst’s personal suite that he shared with Marion Davies, plus we saw various other bedrooms that famous people slept in, like Clark Gable, and the kitchen.
Fascinating. Did you know that you could “rent” the Neptune pool (see photo) for an afternoon’s swim for $5000? A family from Texas paid $9000 for two evening swims. The foundation that supports the renovations also had an eBay auction for a one-night stay at the castle. It included a breakfast out on the terrace. And it went for $28,000! But you don’t stay in Mr. Hearst’s room. The auction was for a room in the servants’ quarters, up in one of the towers! I still thought it was totally cool, and you just might see a story about that in one of my courtesan books! In fact, ideas having been brewing. BTW, the auction and the benefit dinners they have, not the tour ticket cost which goes to the state, fund all the restoration efforts.
And that’s my trip report!
Jasmine, Jennifer and JB! http://www.skullybuzz.com/ Newsletter: skullybuzz-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Too cool! I can hardly wait to read more about this place in the future…
hehehe! The story is coming to me. But I don’t want to give away anything yet. Except that it will involve the Neptune Pool.
At 5 grand an evening?! Sounds like a man after my own heart. Way to keep us begging for more!
Wow, thanks for the photos, Jasmine! That pool is just as amazing as I remember from our visit. Not sure I could possibly afford a swim, but I love the idea of this coming up in one of your stories!
And congrats, Dena! Happy reading!
This is the beauty of going on a small tour, you get all these lovely little tidbits. And it makes the trip tax deductible! Rita, I’d love to meet a man who’d buy me a pool for 5 grand.
Fedora, I hadn’t been in over twenty years. I remembered a lot of it, like the Neptune pool and the indoor pool, but I’d never been upstairs. It was loads of fun. You can read about in an upcoming book (probably 2010 at this point) and know exactly where I got the idea!
I have seen the Hearst Castle from a distance, but never visited. Now I wish we had stopped.
I should have made the photo more of a closeup, but we were in the bus and that was the best I could do. But it was pretty cool, Estella!
Wow what a great trip Jasmine. I am very jealous. The pics are beautiful and that pool is exraordinary. Glad you had a great time.
thank you, Sara! We did have a wonderful time. The older I get, the more I appreciate my family. Maybe it’s because I don’t have kids of my own, but I really enjoy being with my brothers, sister, and mom. It’s like those vacations we used to take to the lake in the summertime when I was a little kid!
I have always wanted to visit the castle. Thanks.
It’s very cool, Debby! I just hadn’t been in so long.
Oh I would give anything to go through a castle! I have always wanted to. Maybe one day I will get to.
I’m a bit jealous of you! 🙂 It sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing and I can’t wait to read the story it inspires!
Hi Jas, I seen a special about the Hearst Castle hosted by Patty. It gave a tour and history of the building of the castle. It’s amazing and the rooms were so extravagant. The upkeep I’m sure is very expensive! I can’t wait to read your story. ————-Thanks for the book too Jas!
If you’re ever out this way, Virginia and Susan, be sure to put Hearst Castle on your list of things to do. It’s actually a fabulous museum and very interesting the way he and his architect build rooms to accomodate things he wanted to display, specifically, wooden ceilings out of castle and monastaries and even the seats the monks used to sit on. It was all amazing.
And I wish I’d seen that special, Dena! I do think the restoration is very expensive. Funny thing happened. We were all walking down to the indoor pool and one of the restorers came running after us. I’d seen him watching us when we were up in Hearst’s study. He stopped my sister and said that she’d taken care of him a few years ago when he was in the hospital for some heart surgery. She’s a nurse. Can you imagine that! He recognized her! Of course, she does have a very distinctive hairstyle that people do not forget.
I was so interested in all you had to say about Hearst Castle I forgot to leave my email address!—————–
JasmineLove the photos. Does the neptune pool rent come with any, I don’t know .. Greek God’s .. or something along the line? My email is ——————ThanksTerra
There are lots of Greeks gods cavorting about, Terra. Unfortunately I didn’t see any real ones, LOL!