Neptune Pool
Working outdoors in the California sun is typically seen as a desirable perk, especially when, as in this case, the on-site alternative was working below ground in a confined labyrinth of narrow passages with limitless opportunities for banging your head. But here, it's my general sense that the plumbers working below ground on Hearst Castle's Neptune Pool (San Simeon, Calif.) had an easier row to hoe than did the marble applicators working in the open air. For one thing, tasks performed on the interior surface of the pool were
It's not often that an opportunity to work on anything as renowned as the Neptune Pool comes around. Built first as a reflecting pool, transformed into an oval-shaped plunge pool and, as Hearst Castle assumed massive proportions, ultimately finished as a 350,000-gallon swimming pool that's probably the most widely recognized watershape in the world, it's a pleasure just to see it, let alone help preserve it for future generations. We at Terracon, an engineering firm based in Olathe, Kans., came to the project through our acquisition late in 2014 of Rowley International, the aquatic design and engineering company based in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. William Rowley, its principal and a specialist in sophisticated aquatic complexes - and, equally important
The first of this pair of articles mentioned that Julia Morgan had completed the architecture program at Beaux-Arts in Paris in three years rather than the usual five, but I didn't mention all of the circumstances. One of the rules of that institution prohibited the instruction of students after their thirtieth birthdays, which seems a totally bizarre limitation to us now but apparently made sense to French academicians at the turn of the 20th Century. Given the delays in her gaining a position at the school, she'd entered the program with the clock ticking and really had no choice but to
Visiting Hearst Castle is an experience that sticks with you. Long before I became a watershape designer, I know that my childhood visits to this hilltop in Central California inspired and affected my thinking about art and architecture and the creative use of space long before I had any professional interest in those subjects. Every time I go - which is as often as I can - I'm impressed by a collection of art and architecture so rich and varied that I always find something new. For years, I've been amazed by the castle's two pools and their beautiful details, incredible tile and classic style. More recently, however, I've started paying closer attention to the other ways in which water is used on the property - and my appreciation for what I'm seeing grows every time I stop by. A BIT OF HISTORY William Randolph Hearst inherited the 250,000-acre ranch on which the castle was built from his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst, in 1919. The remote property hadn't seen much development to that point, but he soon began transforming it into a monument to American ambition and his passion for
