Julia Morgan and the Hearst Castle

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the Hearst Castle this morning, a property which is more of a museum than a home, with its considerable collection of art and antiquities.  Hearst took advantage of a timely availability of crumbling historic European churches and buildings following World War I to furnish an ever-expanding vision of the perfect estate for his family and his legacy.

As soon as we completed our tour of the Hearst Castle I knew I wanted to focus this blog entry on Julia Morgan, chief architect of La Cuesta Encantada, the formal name of William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon mansion.  Morgan was the first female graduate of U-C Berkley with a degree in civil engineering, waited two years to be admitted to the prestigious French National School of Architecture in Paris, and was the first woman certified as an architect in the state of California.  She was well-known as one of the first architects to design with earthquakes in mind, utilizing concrete-reinforced beams.

Neptune Pool

While leafing through a book about her in the museum gift shop, I discovered she and her sister were members of the women's sorority Kappa Alpha Theta, the same sorority of which I am a member. Reading further, I became fascinated with how committed she was to her career, having designed dozens of buildings for women and girls both at U-C (including the local chapter house) and for the YWCA.

Morgan worked on the San Simeon mansion for over 25 years, enduring countless changes Hearst submitted to her due to additional art acquisitions and Hearst's finicky nature, including a complete redo of the 245,000 gallon Neptune Pool three times.  Despite these dramatic shifts in size and style, Morgan was able to retain the most elegant expression of design.  She personally worked on the most minute details: worker camps, zoo structures, grounds.  A shy, solitary person, she was in stark contrast to Hearst's big personality and together they created an unusual partnership with remarkable results.