It's Our Only Castle

Hearst Castle, on the beautiful San Simeon Ranch along California's Scenic Central Coast, is the former home of eccentric publishing icon William Randolph Hearst (the movie Citizen Kane was patterened after Hearst). I recently visited Hearst Castle and do believe that it is America's only true castle. However this castle is basically a Frankenstein castle made up of bits and pieces of damaged art and church history that Hearst had shipped over from Europe during the 1920s. There is somethig so throughly American about taking bits and pieces of other cultures, especailly European cultures and making them into something new. Hearst is also a prime example of American oppurtunisim, he bought his French tapestries, Roman marble statues, Spanish flags and so on from families with good names who were forced to see for financial reasons. Hearst also had a zoo on the property with animals from every continent, I saw a group of Zebra while driving along the highway and let's just say, zebras not indigenous to California. Hearst had is own airport there in the 20s and entertained guests like Clark Gable and Cary Grant, so obviously I loved the place. And I actually had to restrain myself from jumping in the Roman style out door pool and the gorgeous tiled indoor pool.Hearst Castle is beautiful and has a view on three sides of the Pacific Ocean from a top what Hearst called the Enchanted Hill (on the east coast they would call this a mountain, but in California it is just a hill). So Hearst created something competely new, a American ledgend for the 20th century and a monument to both natural beauty and the man-made. I don't know if I would call this patriotic, I feel that things that are patriotic should be unequivocally good for a country, but Hearst Castle is very American.