Pioneering architect Julia Morgan blazed a singular trail. The engineer and designer, who died in 1957 at the age of 85, left behind an architectural legacy across the West.

In 1898, she was the first woman admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to study architecture. Six years later, she become the first woman to be a licensed architect in the state of California.

Morgan gained worldwide acclaim as the architect of San Simeon’s Hearst Castle. Officially called La Cuesta Encantada, Spanish for “The Enchanted Hill,” the massive project for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst was a decades-long undertaking.

She’s also become recognized for some 700 projects she completed in the first half of the 20th century. They ranged from personal homes to city clubs, churches, college buildings, and hospitals in a variety of styles.

When her homes come on the market, they usually receive an avalanche of attention—and rightly so, according to Morgan biographer Victoria Kastner. Her new book, “Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect,” was published by Chronicle Books in 2022.

Despite living a rich life filled with family members, friends, and a wildly successful career, Morgan left no evidence of a romance—except with architecture, according to Kastner.

We spoke with Kastner, who spent decades as the Hearst Castle historian and wrote a trilogy of books about its fascinating history. Her most recent work focuses on the woman behind the building.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: First of all, I have been reading the book and I am so enjoying it. I have learned so much about Morgan I didn’t know.

Thank you, I’m so glad. And the same was true for me even though I had been studying her for decades. It was extraordinary how much I didn’t know.

Q: What drew you to Julia Morgan as a subject?

I was really drawn first to her largest commission. When I went on tour to Hearst Castle in 1978, I was prepared to be very contemptuous of it, and think it was gaudy and mismatched and all the conventional wisdom that people felt at the time. And I didn’t think any of that. I fell completely in love with it.

My whole life changed when I went on that tour. I was officially hired [at Hearst Castle] in 1979. But I was told at the time, “A woman built this, but we don’t know anything about her.” I became their official historian. I had never heard of Julia Morgan. I learned about her through that.

So having grown up in the [San Francisco] Bay Area, plus the knowledge that I had acquired writing these books [on Hearst Castle] and doing research with the Hearst Corporation and family archives, and learning about the castle in a way that wouldn’t be possible unless you worked there as I did for decades.

At first, I felt I’m not sure if I can do it. But then I felt, I think, I might be the only person who can pull all of these skeins together and give it the best shot I had.

Q: Occasionally her homes come up for sale, and there’s always a fascination with those who appreciate history and architecture. Are you noticing a resurgence of interest in Julia Morgan?

I have. I think it came in part from the decision that the American Institute of Architects made in 2014. They chose her as the very first female recipient of the Gold Medal, which is their highest honor. They’ve given it for 100 years, they almost never give it posthumously, and they had never given it to a woman.

Once you see her on the same level as Robert Venturi or Frank Lloyd Wright, and other recipients of that great award, that did sway people’s thinking.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it was said she didn’t have a style, because she could work in whatever style the client wanted. But in the 1990s, they started thinking, “Wait, isn’t that good?”

Her buildings were extremely responsive to their individual owners, and she never skimped on quality. If it was a small budget, it was a smaller house. She treated every project with the same level of dedication and intensity.

She designed 700 structures, and some were demolished. Those buildings that did survive have seldom been altered. The buildings work so beautifully, and that’s definitely true of public buildings as well. She designed dozens of YWCAs, women’s clubs, all around the state, as well as schools, churches, and hospitals.

Many of these buildings are still in existence and still unaltered, and still beloved by people who use them—because they really do meet the needs of users, because they were so brilliantly designed.

Q: What is her legacy?

One thing that she always wanted: a young woman to carry on where she left off. The women would work for her for a couple of years, then get married, then leave. So the legacy is for women to be inspired by her story.

Q: What is your favorite project of hers?

Though I have many favorites among Morgan’s 700 buildings (including her Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland and her Monday Club in San Luis Obispo, 40 miles south of San Simeon), my all-time favorite building has to be La Cuesta Encantada.

Its geographical setting is almost completely unaltered, and the same is true for its architecture. It represented a truly unique collaboration between architect and client, over a period of 28 years. Plus it is spectacularly beautiful, and in creating it, Morgan expressed a more theatrical side of herself than is evident in her other projects.

Q: And that woman could design a pool.

She is so well-known for her swimming pools. It’s so interesting because she may not have known how to swim. There’s no evidence that she did. And yet she really understood what a marvelous architectural language a swimming pool can be, something that is functional and yet incredibly ornamental.

Q: What would you want people to know about her?

I’d want people to know that, although I found no evidence of her having had romantic relationships with anyone, she was not an emotionally distant person. Although she was devoted to her work, she was also an attentive daughter and sister, as well as a loyal friend to dozens of people of all ages.

Q: What other buildings would you recommend we see in person?

Hearst Castle should definitely be experienced in person, in order to grasp its enormous scale. (The castle plans to reopen to the public on May 11.)

The Berkeley City Club is well worth seeing (its restaurant is open to the public) because it is an excellent example of one of her large buildings (46,000 square feet) that showcases many small and delightful individual design elements.

Oakland’s Chapel of the Chimes (which is also open to the public) should also be seen in person, in order to grasp its serene and spiritual atmosphere.

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