The Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle is 104 feet long and 58 feet wide. It holds 345,000 gallons of water.
Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times via Getty ImagesOne of California’s most coveted pools is hosting back-to-back swim parties this month that are somewhat available to the public — if you’re willing to shell out for a lavish dip.
The Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon is an opulent novelty on the Central Coast that’s rarely open to public use. Once owned by media scion William Randolph Hearst, the pool is as desired as it is off limits.
Even those who work for the castle appear to be barred from dipping into the pool, though in the past they were granted a two-hour swim just once a year.
However, a chance to swim in the Neptune Pool is available once again for anyone with outrageously deep pockets in their swim trunks. On Aug. 19 and 26 this month, members of the Foundation at Hearst Castle have two chances to attend an evening swim under the pretense of fundraising.
The cost to join the foundation is a barrier to most swimmers. An annual membership runs $500 per person and goes up from there.
If a member, you are allowed to book a reservation for $1,000 to swim in the non-heated pool. Wet suits are allowed, but there are limited tickets and it’s first come, first served. The purpose of the event is to raise money for the Foundation’s STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) programs, which it says serve youth from underserved communities in the state. Tickets are also 95% tax-deductible.
FILE: Hearst Castle, September 2018, in San Simeon, Calif.
Patrick McMullan via Getty ImageThe first event this month is limited to 50 guests and is called the Hollywood at Hearst Castle Neptune Pool Swim. Members can mingle with industry folks such as Nigel Lythgoe, creator of “So You Think You Can Dance”; Richard Wolffe, a U.S. columnist for the Guardian; and Paul Scheer, one of the funny guys from the TV series “The League.”
The next swim, on Aug. 26, is just your run-of-the-mill $1,000 pool days with no celebrities, but still a chance to support some STEAM middle schoolers while getting most of the donation deducted in the next taxes. It’s limited to 40 guests.
Designed by Julia Morgan, one of the state’s star architects, the 104-foot outdoor Neptune Pool reflects the palatial design of the castle. The pool was built, with the castle’s indoor Roman Pool, in the 1920s and ’30s.
The Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in October 2018, in San Simeon, Calif. The historical landmark was donated to the state in 1958.
George Rose/Getty ImagesThe Greco-Roman-style Neptune Pool is out of this world. There are Italian-relief sculptures and colonnades bending by the pool’s edge. Fittingly, the pool served as a setting for Stanley Kubrick’s “Spartacus” and Lady Gaga shot a music video there in 2014.
The pool reopened in 2018 after a $10 million renovation to fix cracks that were leaking about 5,000 gallons a day before it was drained in 2014. Since the castle is under the purview of the California State Parks, the project was funded in part by Proposition 84, which voters passed in 2006.
In the past, workers and volunteers at Hearst Castle were allowed to swim in the pool once a year, though those swims did not return after the pool’s reopening. A living history docent for the castle named Yvonne Smith wrote in an op-ed about pool access in 2019 that workers were actively “denied a much-beloved perk” due to low wages and an inability to buy a membership for the castle’s foundation. It’s not clear whether that perk has been restored since 2019.