Wyntoon
The land, sited at two sharp bends in the McCloud River, was named by financial adviser Edward Clark for the local Native American tribe of the Wintun people.
[1] In the 1880s, outdoorsman, guide, hunter and trapper Justin Hinckley Sisson came to the area and established a hotel, restaurant and tavern at the foot of Mount Shasta.
With his wife, the former Miss Lydia Field, Sisson operated the inn, and he led various groups of hunters, geologists and mountain climbers.
He established the town of Sisson surrounding his inn, and he built a fishing resort a half-day's ride away on the McCloud River, at an elevation between 2,700 and 3,000 feet (820 and 910 m), some 16 miles (26 km) distant.
[3] In 1899, Sisson's widow sold the McCloud River fishing resort site to Charles Stetson Wheeler, a wealthy attorney from San Francisco.
The multi-wing lodge, dramatic with its stone walls and slate roof,[4] was designed by San Francisco architect Willis Polk, and included an 800-book library with room for hundreds of Native American baskets.
Wheeler directed Polk to give the lodge a "fish tower"—a high study with a view, and two windows which were aquariums containing local trout.
The porch opened to the river in a flight of wooden steps leading down to an octagonal gazebo pierced and supported by a large tree, overhanging the tumbling waters.
[1] Hearst applied the name Wyntoon to the combination of Clark's former holdings and her new lease, and in 1901 contracted for a magnificent seven-story house to be built.
In 1911, Wheeler invited Austro-Hungarian artist and naturalist Edward Stuhl and his wife Rosie to live on the property; they made extensive studies of plant and animal life in the area, and collected many hundreds of specimens.
[15] Six floors of sleeping rooms were contained in the central tower; each bedroom entered from landings along the main spiral staircase carved of stone.
Glazed Paris-green tile from the Netherlands surfaced the roof, providing "a misty color like the holes between the branches in the trees in the forest.
[15] The living room, 80 by 36 feet (24 by 11 m), had at one end an alcove framing a stained glass window, a copy of the 13th century one in Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg,[16] the reproduction fabricated in the Netherlands.
[16] The writer in Architectural Review criticized the quaint wooden carvings which gave the impression of "pastry and perfume",[16] but praised the most important aspects of the structure: The dark height of the room, the unobstructed archways, the deep blues, reds and yellows of the cathedral window, to which time had given maturity, the tapestries, the little flicker of fire, and the roaring of the river outside; and you satiated, tired and inspired by the day's trip among hazel, dogwood, great aged pines, rocks, cascades, great trunks of trees fallen years ago—a disheveled harmony—here you can reach all that is within you.
William Randolph Hearst and his wife Millicent produced five sons from 1904 to 1915—each one spent summer months at Wyntoon with grandmother.
[19] Hearst occasionally entertained her society friends and acquaintances at Wyntoon, bringing selected guests up north from the Panama–Pacific International Exposition of 1915.
Morgan collaborated with her early mentor and teacher Maybeck on plans for an eight-story Bavarian Gothic-style castle with two great towers and more minor turrets, some 61 bedrooms proposed for Wyntoon's largest building project.
[13] Hearst instructed Arthur Byne, his art agent based in Madrid, to find likely buildings he could purchase for their stonework, to give Wyntoon an ancient air.
Most of the priory had been used by Hearst to refurbish St Donat's Castle in Wales in the late 1920s, but the tithe barn had been crated and shipped to San Simeon for possible use there.
[25][26][28] In July 1931, as a steam shovel was making ready to level enough land to accommodate the great castle, Hearst put a stop to all his construction plans.
[25] Abandoning the massive castle idea, Hearst instead asked Morgan to design a "Bavarian Village" with multiple half-timbered buildings in the medieval style of Germany or Austria.
[13] Hearst sent Morgan to Europe to study suitable buildings; she brought fine artist Doris Day with her to investigate architectural inscriptions and painting styles.
Hearst's communications office at Wyntoon was shown in the photos; it was built next to Bear House to keep him abreast of current events.
The structure served as the "nerve center" of Hearst's publishing empire, with three round-the-clock operators minding the telegraph facilities and the telephone switchboard.
[31] Headed by New York Judge Clarence J. Shearn, the trustees slashed Hearst's costs and halted the smaller side projects at San Simeon and Wyntoon which had kept so many contractors busy.
[32] After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, blackout conditions were imposed on San Simeon because of its nearness to the ocean and associated likelihood of Japanese shelling, so before Christmas Hearst moved to Wyntoon with his lover, actress Marion Davies.
[33] Davies' cherished dachshund named Gandhi, 15 years old, fell gravely ill during this time; a veterinarian was called and the animal put down by injection.
[37] Over the 1943–1944 winter, with snow and ice transforming the outdoor scenery, Wyntoon hosted actor Clark Gable, film directors Louis B. Mayer and Raoul Walsh, columnist Louella Parsons, cartoonist Jimmy Swinnerton and his wife, aviator Charles Lindbergh and his family, the former president's daughter Anna Roosevelt and her husband John Boettiger (who worked for Hearst), and millionaire industrialist Joe Kennedy who brought his 26-year-old son "Jack", the future president.
Under Berlin, Wyntoon was made to turn a profit—the old 50,000-acre Wheeler Ranch holding and adjoining parcels adding up to 67,000 acres (27,000 ha) were logged and replanted with more tree seedlings, the operation generating about $2 million annually by 1959.
Energetic kayakers willing to endure dangerous rapids can view the estate from the Upper McCloud River during spring and summer snowmelt.
