During a trip back to California a couple of weeks ago family and I drove up the coast along PCH, from LA to San Francisco–One of the stops we made was at Hearst Castle. This was my first trip to the castle–despite having spent the vast majority of my life in CA–and I’ve never seen a building with a more amazing interior design. Julia Morgan, renowned architect, and William Randolph Hearst spent practically a lifetime designing and acquiring the antique facades and works of art for the structure (including the carved wooden ceiling in the photo above that was imported from Italy).
Hearst’s dining room, which he named the “refectory” after a monastery dining room, was a very social place where he would host an eclectic group of famous guests. Those guests that Hearst deemed most interesting sat toward the center seats closest to Hearst, with less important guests seated toward the table’s ends.
