The biggest house in the world can be found between San Francisco and LA, in California (USA), having a total area of 160 km².

It was first built for the magnate William Randolph Hearts. Hearst was the main character of the famous film “Citizen Kane” by Orson Welles. They started building the house in 1919 but its construction got delayed several times due to the changes that Hearts kept doing during the construction process. For example, the Roman-style swimming pool that he wanted was built up to 3 different times until he agreed with the result.

As we can see in different pictures of the Hearts Castle, it mixes different architectural European styles: From roman castles, to Greek decorations or even Arabic – Spanish origins. These different styles are due to the multiple trips that Hearts performed during all his life through all Europe. In fact, he was so rich, that during his trips he loved some sculptures and he managed to buy a fourth of all of the ones that came up in the market at that time. That’s why in his mansion we can find Greek vessels that were built on 700 B.C.   

Found 400km up of San Francisco and Los Angeles, it’s located at the North of San Luis Obispo. During the 20’s and the 30’s it was used as a meeting place for the most important persons at the time. If all the luxury wasn’t enough for them, Hearts even provided private airplanes and an airfield so his famous friends could get there by plane and not get bothered during their ride to his home. Some of these famous characters were Charles Chaplin, George Bernard Shaw, Churchill and Salvador Dalí. In 1957, Hearts Corporation decided to cede this castle to the State of California so that it could be opened to everyone for visit. Nowadays, is a must in everyone’s visit list around this area, receiving millions of visits throughout the year.

Regarding the distribution, the main building is known as “Casa Grande” which means Big House. It also has three other houses for guests to accommodate. It has a total of 56 rooms, 61 bathrooms, 19 meeting rooms, multiple inside and outside gardens, several pools, tennis courts, a cinema, and even a private airfield. Furthermore, one of its private gardens is a botanic garden with all kinds of exotic flowers. Not to be surprised, the library has more than 4,000 volumes of books and the wine cellar has at least 7,000 different bottles of Californian and European wine.

Curiously, it also has a private zoo, having up to 70 different animal species. Amongst them: Tigers, bears, zebras, kangaroos and monkeys… Nowadays it’s empty since they were all donated to several zoos in 1930 due to the high cost of maintaining them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst

http://hearstcastle.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Castle

http://www.wattsintheworld.com/2013/01/07/our-visit-to-the-enchanting-hearst-castle/

http://cacoastinfo.com/communities/HearstCastle.htm