Welcome back to Hearst Castle Day 2!

We return the next morning to embark on two tours. We begin with the Upstairs Suites.

Check out the impressive wood carvings on the roof; the lions are a symbol of Venice:

Most of the upstairs bedrooms hosted William Randolph Hearst’s weekend guests at the Castle. These next images were taken in Doge’s Suite, two bedrooms and a sitting room reserved for special guests. Note the museum-quality art and hand-painted ceilings.

The next set of ornate bedrooms functioned more like hotel rooms for the weekend guests. Hearst welcomed famous Hollywood stars (Joan Crawford, Charlie Chaplain, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant), political figures (Calvin Coolidge, Winston Churchill), literary greats (George Bernard Shaw), and others (Howard Hughes, Charles Lindbergh).

Next up we stop in Mr. Hearst’s library, which contains four thousand books. The Gothic features remind me of a library you might find in the board game Clue — can you picture Mr. Plum doing serious damage with that candlestick on the right?

From the library we ascend to the third floor where Mr. Hearst personally resided. Up until now we only know a few scant details about the mysterious man of the house (the previous day’s tour and film seemed to evade details about William’s personal life). But the tour of the bedroom clears things up as our guide reveals, “This is Mr. Hearst’s bedroom, and the adjoining room belonged to his mistress.”

This is William’s bedroom. Does the pink quartz lamp on the left below feel a tad out of place?

And his closet:

And finally, the bedroom where his mistress Marion Davies stayed. Turns out by this point William’s wife Millicent was living back in New York and would only fly out to the Castle for important guests (like Winston Churchill). She turned a blind eye to Marion, who lived happily with William until his death in 1951.

This is William’s Gothic study. Don’t you just want to sink into that cozy-looking chair? The arched ceiling is actually painted concrete. Outside the study is a display of all the newspapers William would read each day.

And now we’re back on the ground floor. We have about twenty minutes to walk around before starting our next tour of the Cottages and Kitchen.

Our final tour is coming tomorrow!