Hillwood Gardens

Life is getting a bit crazy with things to attend to in preparation for our move to New Hampshire next month.  Before that move we travel to Buffalo to deliver some items to daughter Sarah and see their new house.  When we return we'll likely be in quarantine for two weeks and will use that time to do the serious packing and staging for the movers on July 14th.

So I'm going back in time to repost blogs from my past.  I'll still be reading your comments.
This one appeared one year ago today.


I wrote about my visit to Hillwood a couple of days ago.  Scroll down to see it.

The gardens there are lovely.  If we'd timed our visit right we may have seen the azaleas in bloom.  But they were gone.

Here is the Japanese Garden.

And here is the Russian garden house, a dacha (?).  This was the only spot where an azalea was blooming still.

Hillwood House

Another trip courtesy of Vantage House where I live.  It's nice to have someone else do the driving.

Hillwood was the home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the heir to the Postum Company (think Post cereals like Grape Nuts) which later became General Foods (think Birds Eye frozen foods).

She lived from 1887-1973 and was among the wealthiest women of her time.  Besides having a hand in business she focused on collecting French and Russian art.  She was quite the philanthropist too with her support of the arts particularly in Washington, DC.  Here in Columbia where I reside we have the Merriweather Post Pavillon, a music venue, due to her generosity.

When she purchased Hillwood she renovated it with the thought it would be her residence and a museum for her art collection.  She lived here in Spring and Fall.  Winters were in Florida at Mar-A-Lago (now owned by someone infamous) and summers in the Adirondacks at Camp Topridge.

Take a tour with me of the inside of the home.  My photos don't do justice to its magnificence and I didn't capture everything.  If you are in Washington you'll have to make a point of visiting this splendid house.

Catherine the Great gets prime billing on the grand staircase.

Gorgeous pieces of French furniture abound.

Looking in either direction down the hall you see rooms set aside to display French (on one side) and Russian (on the other side) porcelain.  Many are complete settings.

The French drawing room has more display spaces

including this glass topped table with an assortment of small items.

The room was renovated to feature the tapestries and furnishings once belonging to Marie Antoinette.

A very special desk with 45 different drawers.

In the Russian porcelain room is this double headed eagle on the floor.

Another room features two Faberge eggs.

A Faberge clock.

The dining room was huge.

She was known for her entertaining.

We even got to see the kitchen.

Upstairs were more rooms to view but I skipped the bedroom having seen that before.

One room was set aside as a gallery to showcase more Russian art and treasures.

This gold chalice commissioned by Catherine the Great in memory of Grigory Potemkin, her favorite courtier.

And this nuptial crown worn by Alexandra in 1894 during her wedding to Nicholas II.

The room was very dark but I think you can tell how dazzling this was.

I took a walk in the gardens and will share those photos another day.

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

On Friday Dan and I drove to Washington to visit Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass from 1877 until his death in 1895.  The home was preserved by his 2nd wife Anna and in 1962 became a National Historic Site.

The house sits on a hill and has views in all directions.

Douglass was the 2nd owner of the house and added to it extensively.

If you are not familiar with Frederick Douglass you should read his first autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Dan recently did and I had read it years ago.  He was an amazing man, who with no formal education became an accomplished author, statesman, orator, and outspoken defender of abolition and women's rights.

Our visit started at the information center.

We joined a kindergarten class to watch the informative video about Douglass' life, then signed up for the tour joining a group from North Carolina.

While we waited we explored the exhibits there.

Douglass was a tall man as can be seen by this life sized statue.  Dan is 6'3".

He came to Washington because of his appointment as US Marshall.

We walked up the hill to the house for the tour.

These first graders are headed back to their bus.

The front porch with the views.

Stepping inside the front hall the stairs to the 2nd floor is in front of you and two parlors on either side.

The family parlor was to the right with the dining room beyond it.

The formal parlor was to the left with Douglass' study beyond that.

I could capture this portrait only by taken the photo through the mirror.

Upstairs on the 2nd floor were 5 bedrooms.  There was also a third floor with more rooms that we didn't see.

In Douglass' time lights were kerosene and heat was from burning coal in fireplaces and stoves.

There was no running water and plumbing was never added.

Most of the furnishings are original to the house since it was never occupied by any other families.

Quite a lovely home and worth the visit to learn about Douglass'.