The lady from the black.., p.6
The Lady from the Black Lagoon, page 6
Penguins, polar bears, kangaroos, antelope, elephants, giraffes, zebras, Indian spotted deer, camel, yak, musk oxen, cheetahs, cockatoos, eagles, monkeys, primates, leopards, panthers and mountain lions all roamed the hillside. There were over three hundred different animals, with zookeepers and staff to take care of them.30
Just like Hearst loved to mix and match artistic styles for his enjoyment, he wanted the same thing in his zoo. He often attempted to place species together in the same enclosure to make them more visually interesting and to increase, as he said, their dramatic effect. Oh, to be so rich that a bunch of leopards isn’t dramatic enough for you.
It might come as a surprise, but these misguided arrangements usually failed. Don’t worry, not failed in the gruesome way you might be imagining. Like awkward roommates, the animals just sort of avoided each other and did their best to stay hidden, much to Hearst’s chagrin. Not to be outsmarted, he had the enclosures moved right next to the roads so the animals could not dash out of sight. The animals had the last word, however. Because Hearst insisted the animals had the right of way on all roads, there were regular traffic conflicts. Guests were often exasperated when their trip to the Hilltop was held up by an unhurried herd crossing the road.
Camille Rossi took a particular liking to the zoo. Building the enclosures and fields and bear grottos was part of the construction he oversaw, so he was around the animals frequently. He had no previous experience with animals, either caring for or training them, but having unlimited access to a private zoo would pique anyone’s interest. When Hearst acquired lions, Camille would go into the enclosure with a chair and a whip to try to tame them. Try, because generations of circus performers have proved that the old-timey chair-whip combination certainly distracts lions from eating you, but it doesn’t actually tame them.
He formed a particular bond with a leopard cub, who he would lead around on a chain. He named it Lepsy.31 Camille once took Milicent’s little sister, Ruth, up to the hilltop to see some of the animals and surprised her by having Lepsy jump down upon her from a tree “just to see what she would do.” This is not the type of surprise a ten-year-old child expects from the zoo. Camille had some rather curious ideas about parenting along with all his strict rules.
Eventually, Hearst had to put a stop to Camille’s zoological antics. One day, one of the workers witnessed Camille feeding the lions by hand. The man, thinking the lions were tame, stuck his arm into the enclosure and one of the lions took the man’s arm right off. Again, those chairs do not make the lions more tame. Hearst was outraged and Camille was no longer involved with the zoo. The Rossi children were likely relieved.
Sadly, it seems like they were used to this sort of behavior from their father. Irrational strictness pervaded the household. He liked to get Milicent, Ulrich and Ruth up first thing in the morning for an icy swim in the nearby ocean. But it wasn’t just Camille enforcing the rules. Elise supported his demands. Both of them discouraged Milicent from socializing. She said that they “wouldn’t even let me having a girlfriend or boyfriend....and I wore heavy skirts because my mother wouldn’t want me to look sexy. It was a horrible situation. I was never allowed to date...and no social life.” She and poor Billy Lyons couldn’t even platonically hang out.
Even though her parents were intensely controlling, there was happiness inside the Hearst estate for the Rossi children. They would often accompany their father on weekend trips up to the Hilltop, where they would play tennis, have the run of the grounds and even enjoy gourmet food in the giant dining hall. According to Milicent, the children “ate wherever my father dictated us to eat,” but when they were allowed to eat up at the Castle, “everything was so fancy all the time. They always had frogs’ legs and French sauce of some sort and all of the different side dishes...it was really rich living.”
Movies were shown once a week for the workers and their families, often before they were released in theaters. Milicent developed her early love of film at these screenings. These nights only took place when Hearst was away from the Castle. There were frequent movie screenings for his guests while he was there, but those weren’t for the workers to attend.
Over the years, Hearst purchased more and more of the land surrounding San Simeon. By 1927, he owned the entire view from the Hilltop. As far as the eye could see in any direction, every acre of shaggy golden grass and rolling hills was his. Milicent was quite literally living inside someone else’s dreamland.
It’s important to remember that there were constant reminders to the Rossis that this opulent life was not theirs. Milicent did not get to feast on frog legs alongside the visiting movie stars and politicians. Most of the time, she and her family had to stay in the mist down at the bottom of the hill, looking up at Hearst Castle shining in the sun. It is surreal to grow up in a literal wonderland, but I imagine it would have been even more surreal to grow up in a wonderland that was not your own.
* * *
After the long drive, a slightly cramped Kate and I finally arrived at the Hearst Castle visitor center. The drive north was gorgeous. For hours, we cruised along the coast across vast stretches of foggy plains, misty beaches and farms full of bored, robust cows.
Just like Milicent wasn’t allowed, you’re not allowed to go straight to Hearst Castle whenever you want. Today, you must go through the very modern visitor center. Hearst Castle itself is five miles up the hill behind the center. I was expecting a single grumpy employee guarding a turnstile, but the visitor center turned out to be about the size and frustration level of a small airport. Kate and I hurried through several different lines and information booths, and had to acquire multiple color-coded wristbands. It didn’t help that we were slightly late (thanks to my glacial driving habits) and had to miss the introductory film being shown to the swarms of arriving tourists.
As our group was called and we were loaded onto a lumbering tour bus, I was happy that we had missed the film. Kate and I were getting an experience more like one of Hearst’s guests, except instead of famous actors and business moguls, we were surrounded by vacationing families, foreign tourists and couples weighed down with gigantic cameras and bulging fanny packs.
With the sea fading behind us to a twinkling backdrop, the bus plodded its way up the hill. The ride to Hearst Castle isn’t a straight shot. Our bus took nearly twenty minutes to make it up the winding road. I felt a lot of sympathy for the horses pulling those wagons full of supplies and construction materials under the hot California sun.
Finally, we rounded a bend and there it was. A great white stone crown perched on top of the hill. We stepped off the bus and stepped into a fairy tale. Blooming gardens and lush greenery were nestled in between regal cottages, sweeping marble staircases and the main house itself, posed proudly at the center. There was Hearst’s disparate collection of art: Egyptian sculptures, Italian marble busts, Spanish architecture. Julia Morgan’s genius was on full display. The collection did not seem hodgepodge. Certainly nothing matched, but it looked right together, as if they were all just more guests for the party. There was a cohesiveness to it; it made a sort of dream sense. This must have been what walking around inside Hearst’s brain looked like. I expected to see men dressed as cards, painting all the bright colors on the roses.
As Kate put it, “Damn!”
Unfortunately, the breathlessness and wonder we felt getting off the tour bus dwindled slightly once the guides started looking at the color of our wristbands and herding us into groups. It is such a surreal place that seeing it with a crowd of Nikon-laden tourists and “Do not touch!” signs seemed right. I felt like Milicent probably felt; you can look and appreciate, but remember, none of this is yours.
We were brought through the three guest cottages first. The furnishings in each one were unique and equally lavish: silk tapestries, oil paintings, antique European furniture. To my American mind, inexperienced with a sense of what royalty looks like, it didn’t seem like the estate of a media mogul, it felt like the estate of a prince.
I was distracted during the first part of the tour, overwhelmed by the beauty of the place. Once we got inside the main house, I started paying attention to all the historical and architectural details coming out of the mouth of the guide: all the statistics of the construction, all the time and money that went into it all, some stories about Julia Morgan and Hearst. It was all fascinating, and of course the main house was even more extravagant and fantastic than the cottages. It was filled with arts and antiques and even the vaulted ceilings were skillfully carved wonders.
Soon, over an hour had passed and our first tour was nearly up. Camille’s name had not been mentioned, not once. When the guide pointed out that we were passing the infamous live oak that had been moved, Camille was referred to as a “construction engineer.” If Milicent had worked in the 1980s to get recognition for her father, what happened? Why was his mark on Hearst Castle erased? I raised my hand.
“Hi! What can you tell me about Camille Rossi?”
The guide frowned. “I don’t know who that is.”
My stomach dropped. “He was the superintendent of construction here for a decade.”
“Oh, huh. I have no clue. I’ve never heard of him.”
Kate and I exchanged glances. This place was great and all, but I really hoped it wasn’t a gigantic and beautiful dead end.
The guide brought us all to stand on a sunny plaza to wait for another guide to come and bring us to our next tour. I was starting to panic. Kate sidled up to me and nodded toward a group of tour guides.
“Let’s go question them. Someone has to know who he is. Grab your recorder!”
“Kate, there’s no recording of sound or video here!” I hissed. If speeding while driving gives me hives, breaking the rules of a historical landmark was going to send me into a panic attack.
She reached into my purse, snatched my recorder, turned it on and then stuck it discreetly inside one of the pockets.
“There! No one will know. Let’s go.”
Actually sweating because I was convinced someone, perhaps with X-ray vision, would see the recorder in my purse and immediately tackle me and haul me off to jail, we walked over. Kate marched right up to the group and asked, “Hey, anyone know who Camille Rossi is?”
Most of the group shook their heads, but an older gentleman grinned.
“I know who he is, that rascal.”
“Rascal?”
“Oh, yes he was.”
Kate and I listened with rapt attention while he regaled us about Camille’s infamous reputation at Hearst Castle and how he was fired.
“Fired?”
“Absolutely!”
As I started to tell him all about my project, our next tour guide had arrived and we needed to leave. Our storyteller gave me some resources about Hearst Castle history and promised to ask around to see if anyone could help me. I didn’t realize how quickly.
Thirty minutes later, while getting a tour of the elegant game room inside the main house, a small woman stepped out of a side passageway and put her hand on my arm.
“Are you Mallory O’Meara?”32
As the tour continued without me, this woman quietly explained that she was one of the Hearst Castle librarians and had just heard about my project. There was a recording related to Milicent Patrick I could listen to that might be useful.
“That’s awesome! Thank you so much. I’d love to hear a recording about her.”
“Not about her. By her. We recorded an interview with her in the late ’80s.”
The librarians charged with preserving the history at Hearst Castle began a project in the 1980s, locating surviving workers (or their families) who were involved with the construction and interviewing them about their memories of the Castle. I could finally hear her speak to me. It’s easy to find DVDs and online clips of movies and television shows that Milicent acted in. Some of these parts were speaking roles and you can hear her sonorous professional voice. But I had never heard her speak conversationally or privately. She could tell me herself about growing up here in this fantastical place.
The grandeur of Hearst Castle set me up for disappointment when I was invited to come to the nearby Hearst Research Library, situated between two maintenance buildings on the Castle grounds. Instead of a grand building, it was a group of cramped trailers off to the side of one of the staff parking lots. Inside one of the trailers filled with modern office equipment and shelves crammed with books and binders, I sat at a desk. Giddy with anticipation, I slid the CD-ROM the librarians had given me into an ancient desktop computer. The media player popped up, but I couldn’t hear anything. I had to crank the volume up all the way and press the cheap headset to my ears.
Milicent Patrick’s sonorous voice filled my head. She spoke with a kindly old woman who asked her questions about her father and their life at Hearst Castle. It felt so intimate, like I was sitting there with her in the living room. Here was a relic of her life, a very personal piece of her puzzle. I finally believed that I could find her.
* * *
Seeing Hearst Castle helped me understand why Camille worked so hard to ingratiate himself with William Randolph Hearst. He wanted to get as close as possible to the source of that wonderful dream. Being on Hearst’s good side could only help him so much, however. Camille was often the source of conflict both up at the Hilltop and down on the ranch. Workers saw him as productive and talented, but also difficult to work with. One of them described Camille: “He seems satisfactory on construction matters but I think he is more of a hindrance than a help in other matters... I don’t think he gets along with people.”
An inability to get along with people certainly was a hindrance for someone so involved with the daily construction of the Castle and the ranch. Besides all the extravagance being built on the hilltop, Camille oversaw construction of ranch staples like barns, animal shelters, poultry ranches, warehouses, stables and employee residences. He was even involved in the landscaping. During the work day, dozens and dozens of artisans, laborers and tradesmen had to interact with Camille and endure his tyrannical behavior, his powerful desire to always be in charge and his need to always be right.
That he spent ten years in the employ of Hearst Castle is a testament to his talent and intellect. His innovative methods saved time, an invaluable resource to such a drawn-out and expensive endeavor. Morgan praised Camille’s leadership skills when he first arrived in San Simeon, but as the years went by, these skills were eclipsed by a personality that his workers and Morgan eventually found intolerable. By intolerable, I mean that the superintendent of the ranch, Arch Parks, said that Camille “seemed to glory in human misery,” a description usually reserved for villains who live high in mountain caves. According to one of the plumbers working on the hilltop, Camille started carrying a gun to work because the men of his crew were ready to “wrap a two by four around his head.” He was an expert engineer, but the persistence of his dictatorial attitude eventually caused the situation to come to a head.
In early 1932, Morgan gave orders that no work was to be done on the indoor pool without her permission. Camille ignored her wishes and brought his crew in to start pouring concrete anyway. When Morgan next visited and saw the work, she was so furious that she had workers chop out all of the concrete and do it all over again to her specifications. Livid, she hung a sign on the doors to the pool that read “Mr. Rossi, under no circumstances are you to enter this pool.” He never went in again.
Morgan finally had enough. She wrote to Hearst, calling for Camille’s removal. She kept her anger restrained in her letter, but privately wrote in her diary that Camille was “so unduly revengeful, he finds so many ingenious ways for indirect expression of his sentiments.” After ten years of quietly dealing with Camille without complaint, this statement speaks volumes of all the injustices she must have suffered and never reported to Hearst.
Hearst instructed her to fire Camille. Keeping with his usual behavior, Camille went over Morgan’s head and appealed to Hearst directly, insisting that his fights with Morgan were his attempts to keep the project efficient and save Hearst money. Hearst, not one for conflict, relented and asked Morgan if she could keep dealing with him. She calmly wrote back, hinting that if Camille stayed on the project, she might not. Hearst got the hint. He liked Camille, but Morgan was invaluable to him as a friend and collaborator. Camille was finished at San Simeon.
It was not a happy time in the Rossi household. Elise’s melancholy saturated the atmosphere of the home.33 Teenage Milicent was straining against the strict rules of the household and taking after her father in one important aspect: she wanted more. She was intelligent and ambitious and desperate to get out of the tiny social bubble of San Simeon.
Morgan replaced Camille with engineer George Loorz, who proved to be a worthy and well-loved replacement. It wasn’t a bad time for Camille to leave the project. At that point, the Hearst estate was already in a decline. Three years earlier in 1929, the Depression hit and Hearst began selling off land. He whittled down the estate slowly for the next decade. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, construction had slowed. Hearst sold one hundred forty thousand acres of ranch land to the United States government as military training ground to help his suffering finances. The zoo was closed and the animals sold off to public zoos all over California.
In 1946, Hearst suffered a heart attack and was advised by his doctors to live somewhere less isolated. He reluctantly followed the advice, and moved with Marion Davies to a home in Beverly Hills. He never returned to San Simeon, and died in 1951 at the age of eighty-eight.
Julia Morgan went on to lots of other architectural projects, plenty of which are still standing today, like the Berkeley Playhouse in Berkeley, California. She was passionate about advancing opportunities for women and made many contributions to Mills College, a women’s college in Oakland, and YWCAs up and down the California coast. In 1951 (the year Hearst died), when she was seventy-nine, she closed her office. She never married, had no children and spent her last five years in content, modest seclusion. In 2008, governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that Morgan was to be inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
