Jax Stumpes: Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens (8/6/2021)

Friday, August 6, 2021 (continued)

Hillwood Estate was one of the homes of Marjorie Merriweather Post, heir and "CEO" of the Post/Postum Cereal Company, later General Foods. Her other homes were Camp Topridge in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Both are now under private ownership, although Mar-a-Lago's zoning was re-designated from single-family residence to private club under Trump's ownership. Now the Trump family lives there full-time on the basis of his being an employee. Wow, the things you learn!

Hillwood (1920s, in Neo- Georgian style) was purchased
by Marjorie Post in 1955; the interior was then gutted
and rebuilt, designed by Alexander McIlvaine,
to showcase the many collections of Post

The entry hall and stairway features a
portrait (c 1788, by Dimitrii Grigorievich
Levitskii) of Catherine the Great of Russia

Marjorie Post had a collection of 18-19C imperial Russian decorative and fine arts, most acquired because her third husband, Joseph E Davies, was the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

Special Exhibit: The Porcelain Flowers
of Vladimir Kanevsky: Lilacs

French commode/chest of drawers (c 1775-1780, by
Jean-Henri Riesener, cabinet maker to French King Louis XVI)

Marjorie Post also had a collection of 18C French decorative and fine arts.

Russian Porcelain Room displayed porcelain and glass,
including pieces from the Orders Service with the
star badges of four elite society organizations (KSS)

French Drawing Room with paneling and fireplace mantel
from 18C Parisian homes, Beauvais tapestries (1730s),
and a portrait (1857, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter)
of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoléon III

The Pavilion was Marjorie Post's "media room"
where she would show movies (we can see
the projector window above the balcony)

Lilies of the Valley by Vladimir Kanevsky
on a Russian table of malachite

Catherine the Great Easter Egg (1914,
by Henrik Wigström of Fabergé)

Twelve Monogram Easter Egg (1896, by
Mikhail Evlampievich Perkhin of Fabergé)

Icon Room Imperial Russian clock

Dining Room with many pieces of
The Porcelain Flowers
of Vladimir Kanevsky

Morning Glory by Vladimir Kanevsky (KSS)

A leaf of the dining room table (1927, by the Opificio
delle Pietre Dure in Florence, Italy) shows the exquisite
craftsmanship often hidden under a tablecloth

Breakfast Room with orchids displayed by
the window to blend with the exterior gardens;
also note the green chandelier from a bedroom
used by Catherine the Great in the Catherine
Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, St Petersburg, Russia