In a recent Classicist column on magnates and their mansions we discussed the famed Hearst Castle at San Simeon, one of the most lavish private residences ever constructed. Now in a beautiful new book due out May 1, Victoria Kastner focuses on the equally impressive estate itself, which encompasses 120 acres of luxuriant gardens and 450 square miles of pristine coastland, that belonged to William Randolph Hearst.

In Hearst's San Simeon: The Gardens and the Land, Kastner, Hearst Castle's historian, draws on many anecdotes from famous visitors - Hollywood celebrities, literary figures, and politicians flocked there - and examines the varied artistic influences contributing to San Simeon's design and the recent efforts that preserved its surrounding land from commercial development. It features Victoria Garagliano's stunning color photographs, plus historic images and original drawings.

The book (above) is available for pre-order on Amazon.

The excesses of today's tycoons have come under lots of scrutiny lately due to the dire financial situation. Titans of business have always been at the forefront of American mythology however, in both good times and bad, and it's worth putting today's crop of nabobs in their proper historical context. That's what William G. Scheller has done admirably in his new book, Great Estates: The Lifestyles & Homes of American Magnates (Universe, $35). The oversized, lavishly illustrated volume celebrates the history of 40 of America's true barons of business, from the 1700s through this year's Forbes list, and opens the door into their private palaces along the way.

Beginning with the colonial era, when trade was overtaking landholding as a way to get rich, Great Estates follows the "restless careers of our most brilliant and driven merchants, industrialists, and financiers as they mastered a new economic world of textiles, railroads, oil, and steel." With the twentieth century came fresh opportunities: "automobiles, motion pictures, broadcasting, publishing, and retailing on a massive scale, and the vast horizon of high technology." And of course the massive mansions that men of great fortune erected as monuments to their success along the way.

These include Henry Clay Frick's Manhattan mansion, now a magnificent museum; William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in California, aka Hearst Castle; and one of our personal favorites, railroad magnate Jay Gould's gothic castle on the Hudson River, Lyndhurst (pictured above on the book's cover). Shortly after he purchased the estate as a summer home in 1880, Gould was at the zenith of his power, having gained control of Western Union Telegraph, the New York Elevated Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad with rapacious methods that once caused him to be beaten by a Wall Street mob.

Times being a trifle tough these days, that $100 million mansion in Beverly Hills may be a bit beyond your reach. The next best thing has got to be Jeffrey Hyland's new 400-page volume The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills, a meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated history of 50 magnificent estates in three world-famous enclaves of the ultra-wealthy - Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, and Holmby Hills. The $250 tome is a definitive history of the area's most famous estates - "the architecturally spectacular homes and lavish grounds that have been home to countless celebrities and the world's richest families for almost a century."

Aside from the purely visual pleasure of the photographs both old and new, Hyland explains the history and architectural importance of each estate, and tells the fascinating stories of the many famed owners, from their "passionate involvement in the design of these costly properties, to their intrigues, triumphs, calamities, and romances." The estates run the gamut from historic Beverly House, the sprawling 1920s Mediterranean estate inhabited by William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies and briefly listed a while back at $165 million, to modern classics like the notorious Fleur de Lys in Holmby Hills (above).

The 15-bedroom Fleur de Lys, which is currently on the market for $125 million, was built by Texan billionaire David Saperstein and is now owned by his ex-wife Suzanne - whom he ditched for the childrens' hot Swedish nanny. The five-acre estate is home to a 41,000-square foot French limestone mansion inspired by France's magnificent Vaux le Vicomte palace outside Paris. Surrounding the mansion are rolling lawns, ornamental gardens and mature trees, a 3,000-square-foot manager's house, staff quarters for ten people, a spa and pool with a pavilion and its own kitchen, a championship tennis court, and a lavish garden folly.



Also featured in the book: Bellagio Road in Bel-Air, built for studio mogul Sol Wurtzel in the 1930s along the lines of the villas found on the hillsides near Florence, Italy; Casa Encantada in Bel-Air, a "modern Georgian with Grecian influences" built in the 1930s by a former nurse from New York who married a much-older multimillionaire glass manufacturer, then took up with her chauffeur after he died; and the storied St. Cloud Road estate which was owned by a string of luminaries including It Happened One Night director Frank Capra, Warner Bros. stars Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, director / producer Mervyn LeRoy, and MGM founder Louis B. Mayer. See the gallery for pix.