Hearst Castle
A unique tribute to conspicuous consumption, Hearst Castle sits like a gothic wedding cake on a hilltop on the southern California coast. Hearst Castle was a meal ticket for architect Julia Morgan for twenty-eight years, and the estate now includes the hotel sized big house and three guest cottages the size of mansions. Here’s one of the cottages. William Randolph Hearst was a collector with the artistic sensibilities of a rabid magpie. He collected coffins, ceilings, floors, tapestries, and fragments…