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| Real Estate & Land |
Land Through the Generations
Daniel Gross
06/01/2004
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THE HEARSTS: Emotional Assets
For five generations, the vast San Simeon ranch, which spreads from the
Pacific Ocean into the foothills of the Santa Lucia mountains, has been a haven
for members of the Hearst family. Stephen Hearst, a Hearst Corp. vice president
who was married there, has called it “the most emotional asset in the Hearst
family trust.” And for more than a century, the land’s ability to produce income
took a back seat to that visceral value. But as open spaces dwindled, the value
of the Hearst ranch as a development prospect rose—and turned the land’s future
into a subject of debate in California, and occasionally within the Hearst
family.
George Hearst struck out for California from Missouri in 1850 and
prospered in the gold fields. He settled his family—wife Phoebe and son William
Randolph, born in 1863—in San Francisco. George started to diversify in the
1860s, first into real estate and then publishing. He spent $30,000 to buy about
40,000 acres of land in the largely unsettled wilderness along the Pacific Ocean
at San Simeon, about 200 miles south of San Francisco.
George built a ranch
house here in 1878 and began stocking the land with cattle. As a young
publisher, William inherited his father’s love for the spread, which grew to
encompass more than 80,000 acres. “Over his mother’s protest, he would take his
wife and sometimes the children there during the busy ranching season, order
horses and tents, summon cowboys from their work, and generally demoralize
the establishment,” wrote Hearst biographer W.A. Swanberg.
Upon the death of
his mother in 1919, William finally had the means to construct a permanent house
at San Simeon. Hearst channeled most of his energy—and cash—into the
construction of a massive castle atop a hill. Planning began in 1919 and
continued for nearly two decades. Hearst bought boatloads of European
treasures—fragments from Roman temples, church altar pieces—and continually
fussed with the building’s design. By 1928, he had amassed 3,000 animals for a
private zoo.
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