Originally built in Spain starting in the year 1133, the buildings of this Spanish Monastery were occupied by monks. The buildings were purchased by William Randolph Hearst in 1925, disassembled and brought to the United States. The stones were numbered and catalogued for later identification. The shipment was quarantined by the Department of Agriculture as an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease occurred in the province of Spain from which the pieces were sent. Not until 1954, subsequent to Hearst’s death, were the stones reassembled.