{"nrhp_refnum":"72000253","name":"Hearst San Simeon Estate","other_names":["Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument","La Cuesta Encant"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"3 mi. NE of San Simeon","address_restricted":false,"city":"San Simeon","county":"San Luis Obispo County","state":"CA","lat":35.68459627650006,"lon":-121.16992008846546,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-06-22","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1976-05-11","areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Art","Politics/Government","Architecture","Communications","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"La Cuesta Encantada (the Enchanted Hill), a hilltop estate of mansion, guest houses, pools and gardens at San Simeon, California, built from 1919 to 1951 for William Randolph Hearst and designed principally by architect Julia Morgan.","why_significant":"The nomination presents the estate as an ambitious, decades-long project by William Randolph Hearst, combining Greco-Roman, Etruscan, Persian, Venetian, Italian, French, Gothic and Hispano-Mooresque motifs in its buildings, grounds and collections. It also highlights the landscaping of a barren hilltop and the estate's role as a public memorial given to the State of California in 1958.","narrative":"La Cuesta Encantada, or the Enchanted Hill, is a hilltop estate above the San Simeon coast in San Luis Obispo County, California. Beginning in 1919, William Randolph Hearst spent about three decades building it with Berkeley architect Julia Morgan. The complex includes a castle-like main house of about 100 rooms with twin towers 137 feet tall, three guest houses in a Mediterranean Renaissance style, garden apartments, and two large pools: the indoor Roman Pool and the outdoor Neptune Pool. Poured reinforced concrete forms the basic construction. The buildings and grounds combine Greco-Roman, Etruscan, Persian, Venetian, Italian, French, Gothic and Hispano-Mooresque motifs, and house art objects Hearst collected worldwide. Soil was brought in and water piped from distant springs to landscape the rocky summit. The Hearst Corporation gave the property to California in 1958 as a memorial to Hearst and his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, and it is open to visitors.","period_of_significance":"1919 to 1951","architect_builder":"Julia Morgan of Berkeley, California (principal architect); built for William Randolph Hearst","architectural_style":"Mediterranean Renaissance (guest houses); Hispano-Mooresque mansion with mixed Greco-Roman, Gothic and other influences","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the State of California and open daily to the public as a museum and park; structural condition described as fair to good, with the north and south wings of the main house left uncompleted.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.313216-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/72000253.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000253/f9d6831322-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000253/f9d6831322-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"No machine-readable author provided. Urban~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).","credit_html":"No machine-readable author provided. Urban~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hearst_Castle_Casa_Grande1.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861464","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q378143"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/san-luis-obispo-county/hearst-san-simeon-estate-72000253/"}