– Following 19 months of careful planning, design, and installation work by California State Parks, the roof of Casa Grande, the main house of Hearst Castle, has been repaired and restored. “The successful completion of the Hearst Castle roof project was essential for us to continue our mission to educate and to inspire the public’s interest in art, architecture and history through public access,” said Brooke Gutierrez with California State Parks.

Hearst Castle, just a few miles north of Cambria, is a state historic monument and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. As a designated historic building, Casa Grande could only be repaired by re-use of the highest proportion possible of original roof materials, to maintain the historic fabric of the estate. In keeping with these efforts, the original, traditional method of fastening with wire hooks was used to re-secure all the tiles in order to preserve the historic character of the
original roof.

The nearly 14,500 square feet of ceramic tile on the roof helps to protect and preserve the art and architecture of Hearst Castle. The repair project involved several interesting challenges, including efforts to protect sensitive species of bats and lichens. This required scheduling removal of the tile outside the bats’ breeding season as well as saving and re-using as many of the original lichen-covered roof tiles as possible.