Citizen Kane vs. William Randolph Hearst
Reflections on the stories through which we view the world around us, misplaced meaning, the hedonic treadmill, and beauty for its own sake -- plus notes from the book tour!
Gracious reader,
I’ve taken some time off to rest after the whirlwind of the European and UK book tour, followed immediately by a series of domestic trips and book events that took me to eight cities in twelve days!
The cities included NYC, Knoxville, Newport (CA), Los Angeles, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Grand Rapids, and Atlanta. Needless today, I’m grateful to be home—and grateful all the more to have been able to meet so many of you at the book events these past few months!
Thanks to those of you who came out to the events and book talks to say hello!
Hearst Castle
In between the Los Angeles and Palo Alto book events, my husband and I drove through central California to visit at Hearst Castle, built by media mogul William Randolph Hearst, an architectural masterpiece and the third most visited home in the United States, after the White House in Washington, D.C. and Biltmore in North Carolina.
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane may be my all-time favorite movie, and ensured a long-time desire to visit Hearst Castle, often compared to Xanadu in Welles’ film. I love Welles films—and as the director, producer and star of Citizen Kane, this debut project puts Welles talent on full display. I adore the film’s powerful commentary on the American Dream, misplaced meaning, and the fruitless pursuit of fulfillment through power and acquisition. Although the movie is a work of fiction, some people connect Hearst and his castle through the prism of Welles’ powerful storytelling.
Shortly after receiving the AFI’s Life Achievement Award in 1975, Orson Welles was asked to contribute a foreword to Marion Davies' oral history, The Times We Had. In his foreword, Welles reflects on what people assumed were Hearst-like elements in Citizen Kane and asserts that only one scene in the film "was purely Hearstian." Welles wrote, "Comparisons are not invariably odious, but they are often misleading."
During my visit, I found it difficult not to view the Hearst and his estate through the Wellesian lens, but found the trip well worth the effort nonetheless.
William Randolph Hearst, the Man
Visiting Hearst Castle is akin to stepping into a realm of unparalleled opulence and historical significance, where every intricate detail mirrors the ambition and unique persona of its creator, the eminent media mogul William Randolph Hearst.
Hearst was the original American media mogul, akin to Rupert Murdoch or Logan Roy from HBO’s award-winning dark comedy, Succession. Born in 1863, Hearst inherited silver mines from his parents, allowing him to acquire a media empire and emerge as a pioneering figure in the media industry. His media conglomerate came to encompass 26 newspapers in 19 cities, 13 magazines, 8 radio stations, and 2 motion picture production companies. Some of these publications, such as Cosmopolitan and Better Homes and Gardens, still exist today.
His life and the creation of Hearst Castle epitomize themes of growth, ambition, and acquisitiveness, also central to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Nestled on a hilltop in San Simeon, California, Hearst’s family had owned the land since the 1800s, using the property frequently for camping. As the story goes, Hearst entered the office of architect Julia Morgan, the first licensed female architect in California, saying, “I’d like to build a little something.”
Just a bungalow, he said.
Over 28 years, this modest plan evolved into a grand "Renaissance hilltop village," blending Spanish and Italian Renaissance styles to highlight Hearst's admiration for European art and architecture. His appreciation for art and beauty began early. In 1873, his mother, Phoebe, took ten-year-old William on a grand tour of Europe, visiting castles, museums, and cultural centers. This trip inspired his later endeavors in crafting Hearst Castle's interior design, architecture, and gardens.
The main house, Casa Grande, spans an impressive 68,500 square feet, boasting 38 bedrooms and 42 bathrooms, along with three guest houses ranging from 2,400 to 5,350 square feet. The famous Neptune Pool, constructed three times, each iteration larger and more magnificent than the last, features a stunning Roman temple façade from the 1st, 4th, 17th, and 20th centuries—a composite.
Hearst's relentless pursuit of grandeur led to continuous expansions and improvements, making the estate a significant financial undertaking. In 1958, the Hearst Corporation gifted the estate and its furnishings to the state of California in fulfillment of Hearst's wishes to establish a monument honoring his mother, who inspired his interests in history, art, and architecture.
Hearst Castle was not only an architectural marvel but also a renowned social hub, hosting a diverse array of guests, including celebrities like Bob Hope and Cary Grant, politicians like Winston Churchill, and notable figures such as Walt Disney and George Bernard Shaw. The only requirement for an invitation was being interesting. Despite the opulent setting, Hearst maintained decorum, discouraging premarital sex and excessive drunkenness. The Castle was alive with cultural activities, from yodeling tournaments to private film screenings followed by discussions with directors and producers. Hearst Castle stands today as a significant cultural and historical landmark, embodying the spirit and legacy of William Randolph Hearst.
The Legend: Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is Orson Welles’ masterpiece, considered one of the greatest films ever made. It has secured the top spot on the American Film Institute’s list of greatest films for years. The story—loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst, who prohibited the film from being mentioned in his newspapers and tried to prevent its release—follows the life of Charles Foster Kane.
Kane’s life is defined by the pursuit of wealth, power, privilege, and acquisition. The film opens with Kane on his deathbed in his palatial home, called Xanadu. He utters the phrase “rosebud,” a mysterious motif referenced throughout the film, and dies. The rest of the film follows a young reporter, Jerry Thompson, as he tries to unravel the mystery of Kane’s life and the meaning of “rosebud.”
Thompson discovers that Kane constantly sacrificed personal relationships in the pursuit of power and wealth. The film ends with Kane surrounded by rare artifacts and masterpieces of art, stacked floor to ceiling in his monstrous home.
Despite all the things money and power bought him, he is alone, having driven away everyone who mattered to him. He chose things over virtue and relationships.
After Kane's death, his staff clears out his home, and his childhood sled, thought to be junk, is thrown into a fire. The name on the sled is “rosebud.” In his final hours, Kane longed for his simpler childhood days when his sled was his most cherished possession and he was loved by his parents.
This ending indicates that Kane felt his life choices—placing the acquisition of wealth and power over people and meaning—were misguided. It didn’t make him happy but left him miserable and alone. While visiting Hearst Castle and seeing firsthand the ever-expanding scope of the project—unfinished to this day—I couldn't help but feel that elements of Welles’ story ring true.
Why Hearst Castle?
Standing in Hearst Castle’s living room, with its grand fireplace, medieval choir chairs, and priceless antiquities, I wondered: why? What drove him to create a home of such unnecessary scale? Yes, he entertained interesting people and was renowned for his lavish parties, but as I write in my book, there’s a dark side to hospitality, where hosting can be more about titillating the vanity of the host than serving guests and promoting community.
Although, as an aside, I will say that visiting Hearst Castle caused my husband and I to anticipate our transition back into our family home—destroyed by a flood last January, ravaged by toxic levels of mold, and now in the final phases of reconstruction—so that we can host and bring people together as Hearst did throughout his life.
Perhaps Hearst was one among many American titans of industry who constructed grand, opulent homes and adorned them with exquisite art. Hearst and his contemporaries collected art with the grandeur and quality of European aristocracy. Their collections now grace museums worldwide. To speculate that Hearst, or his peers such as Vanderbilt, Morgan, Astor, or Carnegie, were particularly 'attached' to material objects is merely conjecture.
The poet R.W. Emerson wrote, "Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing, Then beauty is its own excuse for Being." When contemplating why someone would build an edifice like Hearst Castle, it’s wroth reflecting: why not create something beautiful to savor?
This is certainly why we chose to own the home that we are restoring. it’s unnecessarily large and lavish, but we believe in nurturing our own little corner of history, and creating an oasis from our divided and lonely world through community, curiosity and conversation.
Losing much of our personal affects in our own flood series of house crises reminded me of the importance of detachment to earthly, temporal things. Anything can be taken away in an instant. For those of you on social media, here is a video I created telling the story of our home—the home we bought, built, lost, and are building again.
What is it about the human condition that we become so attached to the material world? Across time and place, we have admired people who live with little, renouncing the pleasures—and often the related perils—of attachment to the world. There seems to be something in the human condition that draws us to the material world, even though we know that material things can never make us truly happy and often bring suffering and disappointment. Stories across history emphasize this message.
The story of William Randolph Hearst, as told through a visit to Hearst Castle, and the story of Citizen Kane illuminate this truth. Stories from history and culture remind us that the things of this world ultimately aren’t enough to fulfill us.
The Buddha shows us that only a life of poverty and service to others can make us happy. Christ’s life and teaching also remind us of the blessedness of poverty, as in the Gospel of Matthew: “For what does a man profit if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
This idea was echoed thousands of years later in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments and in the famous Mexican fisherman parable. In the parable, a fisherman is dissatisfied with his life, wanting more boats to catch more fish to earn more money to retire peacefully by the sea. When asked what stops him from doing that now, he has no answer.
The hedonic treadmill, which ensnared the protagonist of Citizen Kane, assures us that more "stuff" will make us happy. But it’s a treadmill because it’s never-ending: no amount of stuff will ever truly fulfill us. It’s a challenge for us today: how can we let these stories remind us to live our lives with the end and the eternal in mind?
Reflecting on these seminal stories about the perils of materialism and attachment to worldly things is a powerful reminder of this truth.
Questions for reflection:
1. Think about a time when you were persuaded that an acquisition or accomplishment would make you happy. Did it? How did you feel moments or days after achieving it?
2. What do you think it is about the human condition that is so persistently seduced by the promise of “stuff” to make us happy? Forgetfulness? Delusion? Other?
3. How can we better guard ourselves against the often willful self-delusion that the promise of material acquisition presents? (HINT: I think exploring stories like Citizen Kane can help!)
P.S. I explore this theme of materialism in my TV series with The Great Courses—what I call Netflix for nerds! It’s called Storytelling and the Human Condition, and it explores what great stories across time and place tell us about what it means to be human, and what it means to lead a meaningful life.
I’d love to give you a free one-month subscription to try the series. If you do try it, write to me and let me know what you think!
Where to stay and eat while visiting Hearst Castle
Highway 1 Road Trip graciously facilitated our trip by connecting us with some local establishments that showed us very gracious hospitality during our field trip to Hearst Castle.
The night before our day of exploring the grandeur of Hearst Castle, we made our way to Cayucos, California.
We stayed at On the Beach Bed and Breakfast in Cayucos, which was a short 30- min drive from Hearst Castle.
It was the perfect oasis after a frenzied few days of traffic and book events in LA!
When we arrived in Cayucos, we checked in, strolled along the pier, made a friend (photo below) and then enjoyed a gorgeous dinner a few steps down the beach at Schooners, owned by a local and beloved by locals.
Schooners, nestled right on the beach, promised a delightful culinary experience. We started with the grilled oysters, which were a highlight, perfectly cooked and bursting with a smoky taste that complemented the ocean view. We then moved on to the wasabi-encrusted ahi tuna, which was a perfect blend of spice and freshness. Next, we indulged in the almond-crusted coho with fettuccini, a dish that was as rich as it was flavorful. We ended with a cheesecake and carrot cake. because, as the waiter noted, life is too short to choose!
After dinner, tired from travel and time changes, we retired early. We had a lovely room overlooking the water, I left the screen door open by night, and loved falling asleep—and awaking!—to the ocean breeze and the sound of waves lapping on the shore.
Highly recommend both if you make the visit!
Book Tour Events:
The Bay Area Book Launch
Seeking Civility: Important Principles for Divided Times
Wonderful to spend time with Acton Institute community tonight in Grand Rapids discussing why civility supports our freedom and our flourishing, and the role we each have in making our world a more gentle and warm place.
Looking ahead:
June 3- Advancing American Freedom book conversation, Washington D.C.
June 3- Keynote speaker at American Enterprise Institute’s 2024 Summer Honors Program, Washington D.C.
June 19 - book talk in Austin, TX. (Register here!)
June 26 - Brookfield Academy’s Center for Mission & Academics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In the news:
Wonderful conversation at Stanford University. Thanks so much to Francis Fukuyama for hosting the dialogue.
Thanks so much to Utah public radio for hosting me for an hour-long, wide-ranging episode about the most important question of our day: how might we flourish across difference? If you listen in, let me know your thoughts! Click here to listen.
Decency in Decline- discussing my book on The Open Mind!
Acton Line Podcast- Seeking Civility: Important Principles for Divided Times
Thank you for being part of the Civic Renaissance community!
This write-up on Hearst was brilliant, one of Alexandra's best articles yet. It brought back memories of my visiting Hearst Castle with my late parents. It is such a stunning, unforgettable setting. This motivated people to read a very long biography on the extremely complicated WRH, who was instrumental in the world discovering Billy Graham, and in also being sadly suspicious of Aimee Semple MacPherson, the most famous woman in North American at the time.
I love your beautiful home. I loved visiting Hearst Castle. I love Julia Morgan’s architecture here in Sacramento. Thank you for another wonderful article