Two observations: 1.) "The abbey was _bequeathed_, not
'bequested.'" Indeed, there is no such word. 2.) Whatever
happened to the principle of repatriation?

According to SFAlmanac:
>
> This article is posted by the holder of the copyright:
>
> Museum Gives Away City's Ancient Spanish Abbey
>
> Museum Society Director Harry Parker gave away, in the words of de Young
> curator Lee Miller, "the most architectural portions" of over
> three-million pounds of elaborate handcarved Spanish monastery stones. The
> stones did not belong to the de Young Museum, but to the City and County
> of San Francisco. According to the City Charter, all City property must be
> valuated, receive public bids and Supervisor approval before it may be
> disbursed. The abbey was bequested to the City and County by newspaper
> publisher William R. Hearst in 1941. Hearst spent over a million
> depression-era dollars on the 12-16th century architectural monument. The
> relic stones of Santa Maria de Ovila, stored near the de Young in GG Park,
> were delivered by semi-trailers to a Catholic monastery of thirty
> cloistered monks in Vina, Ca., near Chico. "It sounds scandalous to me.
> There seems to be some arrogance towards the law," Supervisor Terence
> Hallinan told the Western Edition newspaper, which broke the story on July
> 10. "I always assumed the stones were there, and someday we would do
> something with them."
>
> History editor Walter Biller says reconstruction in SF was always
> possible. He was developing a modern privately funded proposal for a San
> Francisco reconstruction. "I can't believe Parker had any idea of the
> abbey's extreme value and architectural importance," Biller said. "Even
> remedial research in the de Young's own magazine (Pacific Art Review)
> points up its title is held by the City (not the de Young), and gloats on
> its historical and financial pricelessness." Biller says that Parker gives
> his own account of the giveaway in the July 14 Examiner, four days after
> the Western Edition revelations. "I can't comment on that rebuttal article
> except to say there's something very wrong." The de Young actually tried
> to give away the abbey before. On May 18, 1963, City Attorney Thomas
> O'Conner ruled the historic relic was City property and must meet that
> criteria in the Charter.
>
> Biller has studied the monastery for some years. He says, "In 1941, famed
> architect Julia Morgan drew elevations and had a model built. It is often
> told by guides at the de Young that the abbey is not rebuildable after a
> series of postwar fires, but in 1959, after the worst and final fire the
> year earlier, architect Walter Steilberg, who worked closely with Julia
> Morgan, did an exhaustive stone-by-stone survey for the Supervisors. He
> reported 85% of the stones-nearly 1600 tons of the multi-building
> complex-were buildable. Steilberg knew the abbey better than anybody-he
> took it apart and crated it near Madrid, Spain, in 1931."  Hearst once
> owned another prize monastery, from Sacramenia, Spain, which was
> reconstructed in Florida in 1952 by two private developers. Today it is a
> popular North Miami Beach site and a National Registered Landmark. Biller
> is coordinating a growing citizens' group, "Knights of the Spanish Abbey"
> to help illuminate the abbey's beauty and history. ([log in to unmask])
> -Article by Margaret Heller & Walter Biller
>