It was never easy being a female architect; it was even worse being a female architect from Berkeley. Famed architect Julia Morgan found herself battling the man who trained her just to get an opportunity to design buildings for her alma mater. Luckily she knew wealthy benefactress Phoebe Hearst, who had millions of dollars to spend on building tributes to her late husband on the Berkeley campus.
Ms. Hearst loved the idea of hiring a woman to do what was considered to be men's work at the time and (some say more importantly) wanted to keep Julia Morgan's talents away from her son, who she was certain would use them to build a boondoggle mansion in San Simeon. While Julia's mentor at Berkeley was a bit sexist and resistant to letting her design any buildings, the formidable Phoebe Hearst ensured that campus officials knew that her beneficence would only flow to Julia Morgan designed projects and they were loathe to turn down her donations.
Ms. Hearst would not live to see her prophetic prediction come true; her body wasn't yet cold in her grave before Julia was pulled from her Hearst financed Berkeley projects and semi-permanently installed in San Simeon, working on the most impossible project she would ever undertake- construction of Hearst's beloved Casa Grande- Hearst Castle.
