| Although it is located some two hundr forty
miles north of Hollywood, the Neptune Pool at HEARST CASTLE is nonetheless
one of the most famous and opulent pools in Hollywood lore. William Randolph
Hearst first connected with the world of Hollywood in 1917 when he met
and fell in love with a young starlet named Marion Davies. Not especially
fond of the castle, Davies preferred to stay at the hundred-ten-room Santa
Monica beach house that Hearst maintained for her. While guests at the
castle included such dignitaries as Sir Winston Churchill, George Bernard
Shaw and Calvin Coolidge, Davies was happiest when her Hollywood friends
such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Errol Flynn, Carole
Lombard and young Jimmy Stewart came to visit. Fortunately, Hearst loved
to be around the youthful movie crowd. He hired some of the stars to appear
in Davies' movies, and he was known to hide new contracts under their plates
at the dinner table. Guests had their choice of swimming in an indoor pool,
or in the Greco-Roman style Neptune pool, which holds 345,000 gallons of
water, and is filled (even today) with mountain spring water. The pool
area has seventeen dressing rooms that could accommodate the forty to fifty
guests Hearst usually entertained on weekends. Hearst himself was an accomplished
swimmer and often went into the pool with one of his many pet dachshunds. |
Completed in 1912, the Spanish-style BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL
looked liked an oasis in the bare, dusty terrain of its surroundings. The
hotel, a huge success almost from the beginning, was packed with guests
from the icy midwestern and eastern states. Many who came decided to stay
and establish homes and businesses nearby. Soon the hotel sat in the middle
of America's wealthiest neighborhood. The hotel's now legendary Polo Lounge
opened in the thirties. Since swimming became Hollywood's favorite pastime,
a huge swimming pool was added in 1935. By the forties, when this picture
was taken, the "Pink Palace," as it was called, had become the
ultimate playground of the rich and famous: the Astors, Vanderbilts, Fords,
Rockefellers and Kennedys joined the likes of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,
the Prince and Princess of Monaco and the Queen of Holland. They all stayed
at the hotel, mixing with Polo Lounge regulars such as John Banymore, Marlene
Dietrich, W.C. Fields, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles and Frank Sinatra,
creating the movie-star appeal that gave the hotel its cachet. |
