[Publib] Hearst and Castle

[Backwage at aol.com]

California is an attractive place, in the most literal sense.   Sometimes 
it seems as if the entire nation had been tipped on end and everybody  who 
wasn't firmly attached to somewhere else ended up here.  We got a lot  of 
millionaires, back when a million dollars meant something; most of them  didn't 
know what to do with their money, so rather than have it burn a hole in  
their pockets, they spent it building elaborate monuments to themselves.
 
Thus the Huntington Library and Gardens, the Getty Museum(s), and of course 
 that little pile of bad taste they call Hearst Castle, up along the coast 
near  San Simeon.  As the story goes, the young William asked if his mother 
would  buy him Windsor Castle.  When she turned him down he added, "Well 
then,  will you buy me the Louvre?"  Visitors to the Castle may come away 
thinking  that Hearst got a big part of his wish, both with regard to Windsor and 
quite a  few other museums, including the Louvre.  Flush with cash, Hearst 
bought as  much of postwar Europe as he could ship out, including entire 
buildings,  furnished rooms, huge collections-- and not really toward any 
particular end  rather than gross accumulation.  
 
As to its name, Hearst never called the place anything but "the ranch" or  
its formal name, La Cuesta Encantada.  In fact he hated the term.   Where 
then did the name come from?
 
[and is there anything quite so foolish as the tendency of Americans to  
create odd "romantic" terms, especially place names, for  their estates?  The 
Spanish language street names  of California would make a cat laugh--if the 
cat knew Spanish.   Everything is 'encantada' or 'grande.'  Yes, here in the 
Golden  State we are ever reliving the days of Ramona.] 
 
One theory is that it arose from the tendency of headline writers to  
truncate words and phrases in order to fit a given space.  That's how the  term 
World Series came into use; it is an obvious shortening of World's  
Series--and no, the series isn't named because of sponsorship by the  New York World. 
 On the other hand, it is not to far a stretch to  suppose that the name is 
an inside joke originating from within the art world,  and particularly 
among folks who would know something about palaces--of art and  otherwise.  
 
Back in the days when educated people shared something like a common fund  
of knowledge, before you could escape college without knowing any history at 
 all, everybody knew the castles of Britain and Europe.  One reason was 
that  they formed part of the Grand Tour; another was that they were the 
subjects of  many books, particularly those with engravings or other 
illustrations.  
 
And so the historical canon of the 19th and early 20th Centuries would have 
 included references to monuments, if for no other reason that they stood  
still for pictures.  And of course, if a building were associated with  
particular historical events, so much the better to include it in an official  
history.  
 
Of course, practically nobody now can relate the events of the English  
Civil War.  On his way to getting his head removed, Charles I of  England hid 
himself in one of Henry VIII's little redoubts, a place known as  Hurst 
Castle.  You can still visit the place.  I wonder if 'Hearst'  wasn't made 
singular as a jibe to William Randolph's greedy acquisition, as  though he might 
have acquired Hurst Castle, or any other Castle, bodily and  entire, for his 
collection.
 
Personally, the Hurst idea appeals to me, but I'm sensible enough (in the  
contemporary usage) to know that it's more likely that Hearst Castle is the  
result of bad grammar and/or the requirements of hot-type headline  
writing.  
 
M. McGrorty
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