Other guests that day may have been Charlie Chaplin, David Niven and Errol Flynn or Bette Davis, the Marx brothers and Humphrey Bogart.

They would have been discussing Hollywood. A permanent fixture was the actress Marion Davies and the host, her lover, the house's owner, William Randolph Hearst.

It wasn't just any old house, neither was it one of the many mansions that line the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. This was a palace, built to the specifications of the owner and decorated to his expensive bespoke tastes — from catalogues of art treasures, for sale to the highest bidder after the Great War ravaged the world.

From the outside it looks gaudy and awkward. Its design is based on a Spanish cathedral. Inside each space is huge . The floors are covered with the last word in silk Persian rugs; the walls bedecked with great masters.

The dining room is divided by a 50 metre-long oak table covered with silver. The chamber is lined with choir stalls from Spain and Portugal, none younger than 450 years old.

The estate stands, amazingly still unfinished, high on a hillside above the village of San Simeon, a few miles from Pacific Highway 1, the coast road between California's two man cities.

It is now a national treasure and open to the public. It was known variously as Xanadu, Hearst's Castle or simply "The Ranch." It has its own zoo, airport, cinema and cattle farm.

It would have had a lot more, too, but for the fact that Hearst and his architect, Julia Morgan, ran out of time. They never would have run out of money.

Many will remember Hearst as the character played by Orson Welles in the classic film Citizen Kane. The two men never met and, tellingly, Welles was never a guest, unlike most of Hollywood's other big names.

Hearst made his billions in the newspaper industry and also invested heavily in radio, movies and the burgeoning medium of television.

His favourite actress was Davis, who was a permanent fixture at the ranch, despite the fact that Hearst's wife Millicent lived perfectly happily in New York.

I am a man of simple tastes and if I had a fraction of his wealth I wouldn't have spent anything like the sum Hearst did on a home. Interior design is not really me either.

With a day's interest from his billions I could happily buy a house overlooking the R iver Ness and furnish it out of Ikea. But then I am a Philistine when it comes to soft furnishings.

Hearst's Castle is a must see on the fabulous drive north from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I may be a Philistine but I am not too much of a Philistine to avoid it.

It is fabulous and well worth a day out of any holiday. You are teleported back to those heady days of the 1920s and 30s.

There was no excess too eccentric; there was no whim that went unpandered.

Hearst wanted you to have fun if you were his guest, and if you were one of his guests you were one of the world's A-listers. You were the David Beckham or Angelina Jolie of the day. There are 56 bedrooms, 19 day rooms and 61 bathrooms here. There are two swimming pools. The Neptune pool is of black and white marble surrounded by ancient columns and overlooked by carvings of the God himself. The other is indoor, gloriously created from blue and gold tiles and designed along the lines of a Roman bath.

The staff are allowed to swim here at the end of each season but are forbidden from touching the sides or bottom to preserve the ancient stonework.

Amazingly, they decline the invitation because the water is too cold. This is California after all, and modern whims are pandered to, just as they were back in the days.

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