Xanadu (Citizen Kane)

Xanadu is the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane, the title character of the film Citizen Kane (1941). The estate derives its name from the ancient city of Xanadu, known for its splendor. Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, is the obvious inspiration for Xanadu, due to the Hearst/Kane comparison that is central to the film.

Built on an immense "private mountain" located on the "deserts of the Gulf Coast" in Florida, Xanadu is described as being the world's largest private estate; "Cost: no man can say," according to the newsreel at the beginning of the film. The newsreel directly quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan", which tells of the title character's erection of a 'stately pleasure-dome' in the city of Xanadu. The newsreel also states that Kane specifically conceived the estate for Susan Alexander, his second wife. However, Susan grew to hate Xanadu, calling it "forty-nine thousand acres [76 square miles, 200 km²] of nothing but scenery and statues." The News on the March description of Xanadu—a pastiche of the style of The March of Time news digests then regularly seen in theaters—is as follows:

Here, on the deserts of the Gulf Coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built. One hundred thousand trees, twenty thousand tons of marble are the ingredients of Xanadu's mountain. Contents of Xanadu's palace: paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace — a collection of everything so big it can never be cataloged or appraised; enough for ten museums; the loot of the world. Xanadu's livestock: the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, the beast of the field and jungle. Two of each; the biggest private zoo since Noah. Like the Pharaohs, Xanadu's landlord leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the Pyramids, Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself.

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