...to those who own one.
That may not be quite so true anymore, but it sure was in the day of William Randolph Hearst, whose Hearst Castle we visited on Wednesday.
Alhtough larger than the mansions of Newport, R.I., the media mogul's monument to himself and to wretched American excess is certainly a warmer and more inviting place than the mausoleums of Bellevue Avenue.
Because the estate sprawls in several buildings across a hilltop overlooking the Pacific, the better to accommodate Hearst's celebrity guests, its size doesn't overwhelm and intimidate like, say, Vanderbilt's The Breakers, which we visited earlier this year.
Although the museum's exhibits are about as honest as these sorts of things can get, including Hearst's rambling NBC commentary on why the U.S. should have stayed out of World War II, conspicuously absent is any mention of the movie purportedly based on Hearst's life that is widely regarded as one of the best of all time, "Citizen Kane."
Certainly it's in keeping with Hearst apparent edict that his papers ignore the movie because it plays way to fast and loose with the facts in telling the story of Charles Foster Kane. Hearst may have had a point.
Probably the real hero (or should I say heroine) of the Hearst Castle story is Julia Morgan, California's first licensed female architect. She suffered Hearst's many quirks and change-orders through the 28 years of construction. I'd certainly like to know more about her and the artisans and construction workers who executed Hearst's vision.
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