My Favorite Home Tours Part One

I like visiting homes that either through their creation or their occupancy have acquired some of the character of the person who lived there. You can learn a great deal about a person by their home, whether they are present in it or not. Since I love tours and my family operates on a home school schedule, I’ve been to numerous places in California where you can not only visit a person’s home, but walk around inside someone’s dream. In this first of a two-part blog I’ll give you two places along the California coast to check out.

Hearst Castle California State Park
http://www.hearstcastle.org/
On a beautiful hilltop that looks out to the sea beyond San Simeon, California newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst wanted to “upgrade” his family’s tent campsite into a comfortable vacation residence where he could entertain his famous and infamous friends in lavish style. What he ended up with was 90,080 square feet of eye-dazzling architecture that houses his museum’s worth of rare world art and fine collectibles. The California State Park’s Service has created a top-notch tourist attraction out of the estate. There’s a theater that shows a quality film about Hearst and his home, a huge gift shop, candy and pastry vendors, a cafeteria, and air conditioned busses with audio tours that take you up the hill to the estate which encompasses swimming pools, tennis courts, 96 bedrooms, 41 fireplaces, 61 baths, and 19 sitting rooms. Whether you like architecture, art, gardens, history, or interior decorating, you’ll find something awe-inspiring about Hearst Castle. And if all you’re interested in is the sensationalism, hedonism, and scandals of the rich and famous, well, there’s plenty of that, too.

I’ve been to Hearst Castle about four times now in my life and what I love about it is the humble story of Julia Morgan, the architect who started the project in 1919 and spent 28 years of her illustrious career supervising every aspect of the estate’s construction including the purchase of the Spanish antiquities, the Icelandic moss, and even the reindeer for the private zoo. Hearst paid for the castle, and he entertained in the castle, but the character of the castle is a blend between Hearst’s ambition and Morgan’s artistic vision. A San Francisco native, Julia Morgan was one of the first women to graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in architecture. She was the first woman ever to go to Paris and gain a post-graduate degree in architecture. She has over 800 lovely architectural projects to her credit throughout California and Hawaii. She lived her talented life to an advanced age as a single, professional woman devoted to her extended family and to making the designs of buildings we live in both practical and aesthetically pleasing.

I’m not enough of a party person to have wanted to be one of Hearst’s guests at his dinner parties. But I would love to swim in the indoor pool, with its ultramarine blue gold-leaf tiles, all by myself. I’d also like to sneak up to the library and just sit in a window that looks onto the sea and read. I would have liked to go horseback riding under the riding arbor when the wisteria was in bloom and catch a glimpse of Julia Morgan directing the workman. She is someone I’d like to have split a sandwich and a cup of coffee with while sitting on one of the half-constructed walls during a construction break.

Nit Wit Ridge
881 Hillcrest Drive, Cambria CA
Michael & Stacey O’Malley (805) 927-2690

To go from taking a tour of Hearst Castle with all its glitz and glamour to a tour of Nit Wit Ridge is truly going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but seeing both sights of such extremes provides mental balance and honors the right of anyone to pursue their dreams. Nit Wit Ridge is only a short drive south of Hearst Castle along Highway 1 in the little folk artsy community of Cambria. You can GPS the address and drive by anytime, but to get in and actually walk around you need to call the O’Malley’s in advance and arrange for them to come out and give you a tour. The first time I tried to meet up with the O’Malley’s we missed connections. A few years later I tried again and was glad that I had persisted because I’ve never looked at a garbage heap the same way again.

Arthur Harold Beal lived in the “shadow” of Hearst Castle construction, but unlike the millionaire, he was the town’s garbage collector and junk hauler. He couldn’t believe the things people just tossed out that still had a lot of use in them and often a lot of artistic charm. So, der Tinkerpaw, as he was nicknamed, started creating a home for himself out of “found” materials. There’s a whole “found art” movement nowadays but in 1928 he was just considered a nitwit and the neighbors complained that he was bringing down property values. Beal ignored them and continued for 50 years to landscape his 2.5 hillside acres with 3 levels of terraced gardens, stone arches, and his small home all built out of cement and beer cans, abalone shells, broken tiles, car parts, TV antennas, and salvaged bathroom medicine cabinets. It’s the picture frames made out of old toilet seats that give a glimpse of the humor of this non-conformist. What I liked were the little found figurines, old dolls, china pieces or old salt & pepper shakers that are embedded in the mosaics of ocean glass and broken pottery.

Unfortunately, where Beal excelled in creativity, he lacked in people skills and he often had reputation-damaging run-ins with local government and the “Lookie Lou’s” while apparently being a great host to those he considered friends. After Beal died in 1992 there was pressure to tear the place down. Beal’s friends the O’Malley’s had to struggle to get Nit Wit Ridge declared a State Historic Landmark which does not carry with it the development money that comes with being a State Park but does insure that a bulldozer and wrecking ball don’t have their way with the property. The price for a tour of Nit Wit Ridge is much less than you’ll spend for a tour of Hearst Castle and there is no gift shop or modern bathroom facilities in any visitor’s center. Still, the forty-five minute tour did not leave nearly enough time to study and savor all the uniqueness going on in the place. Where Hearst had poured money into the construction of his home by an army of workmen, Beal had done the back-breaking work of pouring concrete all by himself.

Want to have a perfect tourist day? Take the Hearst Castle tour in the morning, have lunch at the State Park picnic area, then drive down to Cambria and hook up with the O’Malley’s. After a tour of Nit Wit Ridge you’ll have time to go down into Cambria and dine at Linn’s Bakery and Eatery (https://linnsofcalifornia.com/ or http://www.linnsfruitbin.com/) which is worth a trip to Cambria all on its own. We’ve never eaten anything there that wasn’t outstanding and what they do with an olallieberry is sheer artistry. Linn’s represents another form of the American Dream – a family-owned business that started out as an orchard, then a fruit stand, then a fine foods emporium and bakery, and after a fire in the 1990’s, a charming restaurant on a major thoroughfare of touristy Cambria. Be sure to save room for dessert! You’ll be able to reflect over the after-dinner coffee on a day full of inspiration.