Bill Apperson: A Pleasanton legacy Bill Apperson: A Pleasanton legacy (February 25, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

W hat do the Hearst Castle in San Simeon and the house at 530 St. Mary St. have in common? Answer: Both have been the home of Bill Apperson, the grand-nephew of Phoebe Apperson Hearst and today Vice Chairman of the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation.

I serve with Apperson on the board of the Amador-Livermore Valley Historical Society, which operates the Museum On Main Street. I have to admit that I'm a relative newcomer both to the board, which I joined two years ago, and to Pleasanton, having moved here in 1987. Most board members have been here for many more years, including Apperson, whose family moved here from Sunol shortly after he was born in 1924. Apperson has served twice as president of the museum board, which he joined in 1963. At that time, when it was just getting started, the museum had a small exhibit space at the Fairgrounds. In the late 1970s, the museum moved into its current Main Street building that once was the Pleasanton City Hall.

In fact, Apperson's father, Randolph, was a member of the Pleasanton City Council in the early 1930s, joining in council meetings in the same large exhibit room where Bill Apperson and the museum board now hold their monthly meetings. "What goes around, comes around," Apperson mused, pointing out that ever since his grandfather Albert, who was Phoebe Apperson Hearst's brother, moved to the area, Pleasanton hasn't been without an Apperson. He adds, ruefully, that his son Frank, who lives next door on St. Mary Street, is not married, so this could be the end of the generations of Appersons who have made Pleasanton their home.

Bill Apperson never knew his great Aunt Phoebe Hearst, who died in 1919, but he recalls many visits to Casa del Pozo de Verona, the elegant 50-room mansion that stood on the site of the present Castlewood Country Club until it burned down in 1969. But he knew her son William Randolph Hearst quite well, pointing out that the Apperson family has always had a close-working relationship with the Hearsts. In 1933, his father was asked by Hearst to tour all of the extensive cattle and farming holdings Hearst had in California, Texas and Mexico, which were losing money. Six months later, when Randolph returned and filed his report, Hearst talked him into taking over the supervision of the ranch and farmlands, including the thousands of acres surrounding the Castle. So in 1935, when he was 10 years old, Bill Apperson transferred from the old Pleasanton Elementary School, located where the school district headquarters now stand, and moved into fifth grade at the one-room schoolhouse in San Simeon. A year later, he was enrolled at the old San Rafael Military Academy, where he graduated from high school, spending each summer helping his father at the Hearst ranch.

In 1947, after serving in the Navy, Bill Apperson came home to the St. Mary Street home, where his grandmother lived, and he has been there ever since. He opened the first Laundromat on Main Street, had a decorative arts wholesale business in San Francisco, married his wife Ann in 1963, was one of the country's best-known breeders and exhibitors of Hackney ponies and managed the Apperson family's 2,500-acre ranch outside of Sunol, which he later sold after trying unsuccessfully to develop a commercial guest ranch, tennis complex and spa. Now 80, Apperson devotes much of his time to the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation, working to preserve and restore valued artifacts and artwork, including the Spanish ceiling that was just completed. With his experience and contacts, he has also been a major contributor and consulting board member to the Museum on Main Street.

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