These are photos of the famous Hearst Castle up in San Simeon, California. I drove up there a week or so ago to finally see this incredible “house” that was owned by genius magazine magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Hearst inherited the land his father had bought which was around 250,000 acres and 14 miles of coastline. That is a lot of land. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. Today, I think Heart’s children own roughly 82,000 acres now. Which is still absurd. Basically when you stand a top of where the house is and look in a 360 degree view, they own that plus some.

The house itself is gaudy to the max. Apparently Hearst had a thirst for antiquity and art. The house was designed by American architect Julia Morgan. The guest houses (one of them being the second picture in the series which is Casa de Sol) are probably bigger than your house. The famous Neptune’s pool is nothing short of amazing. Part of me really wanted to do these in color but I thought running with a 1930’s theme would be a nice adage to the Hearst Castle.

No detail was left unnoticed. Enchanting is a good word to describe the place. So many artisans were hired to carve this and carve that. The “house” itself is a museum filled with art and then more art. Must have been rough to have that kind of wealth. Too bad Mr. Hearst couldn’t have an iPod to bump at his parties. I’d love to see what a modern day Hearst would have as a house.

My favorite feature was the tennis court. I don’t know why. Our tour didn’t even go over there. I just kind of saw it and wandered over there. It was so clean and modern. It stood out from the rest of the gaudiness that made up the castle. I don’t play tennis but that would be an incredible place to play tennis. But not as cool as the tennis court on top of that tower in Dubai.

The last room we saw was this insane indoor pool that was modeled after traditional Roman bath houses. I’m not sure if Roman bath houses looked like this or not but this room was insane. Apparently it took three years to import all the tiles from Italy. The entire room is covered in these dark blue tiles that have gold mosaics to create creatures throughout. Yeah, the entire room is littered in gold tiles. Top to bottom. Maybe someday I’ll post the color version of the pool. Or you can just do a Google search.

If I were Hearst, I would have been totally ok with building a giant prefab home up there. Biggest damn box you’d ever see sitting on top of a hill over looking the Pacific.