Detail, tile work, guest bathroom, Marion Davies Guest House, circa 1929.
Santa Monica, California

Marion loved pretty tile, as evidenced at the restored Guest House as well as at other Hearst properties, and with 55 bathrooms in the Beach House (now demolished), one can only imagine she had ample opportunity to indulge her taste.  I hear the bathrooms at San Simeon are lovely too.

In an era not unlike our own, a time of excess and precarious fortunes and financial ups and downs, Marion and her guests certainly enjoyed themselves, frolicking in the sun and sea and sand.  Then things fell apart, as they tend to do.  By the time the War came, Marion watched the sun set over the Pacific and thought about the possibility of submarines beneath the still waters and decided she'd be damned if she was going to be a sitting duck down there on the beach when the Japs showed up, so she moved to higher ground.  The rest, of course, is history.

Like all of us, I've done well in bad times and badly in good times, and there's a downside to both.  Success, like Misery, enjoys company; let's face it, you want to be in step with at least a few of your fellow travelers on the road to Destiny.  The Different Drummer has his appeal, but it can get pretty lonely if it's just you.  Marion and Hearst and friends had less than twenty years of the high life in that palace on the beach before it was just her, waiting for the invasion that never came.  Twenty years, of course, is a long time.  For a house.  For a good time.  For a lot of things.  Still, you may not want to be by yourself when it all gets swept away.