Thursday, July 12, 2012

Hill-Stead Museum



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Visit our Tour Destination: Connecticut page to see the entire tour of the state’s Save America’s Treasures sites.

Aerial view of Hill-Stead Museum, the restored Pope Riddle house.
Photo by Jerry L. Thompson.  Image courtesy of Hill-Stead Museum,
Farmington, CT. 

Hill-Stead Museum
35 Mountain Road
Farmington, CT

Website:  Hill-Stead Museum

The Treasure:  Theodate Pope Riddle, one of the first American woman architects, built Hill-Stead, a masterpiece of the Colonial Revival style that served as both a country estate for her parents and a fitting home for their magnificent art collections.

Accessibility:  Hill-Stead Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 to 4, and the grounds are accessible from 7:30 to 5:30.

Painter scraping and caulking clapboard
on the Makeshift Theater exterior.
Photo by East West Builders.
Image courtesy of Hill-Stead Museum,
Farmington, CT.
Background:  The fourth registered female architect in the country, Theodate Pope Riddle (1867-1946) was self-taught in her chosen art, yet she quickly asserted her talents and skills. Throughout the 1890s, Theodate refined her architectural skills by rehabilitating and significantly expanding an old farmhouse in Farmington to serve as her home. She called it the O’Rourkery. Then she purchased land behind her house with the intention of creating a much grander estate for her parents, Alfred and Ada Pope.

To some degree, the architecture of Hill-Stead was a collaborative work, with initial plans and oversight by the prestigious firm McKim, Mead & White and advice from local master carpenter Hal Mason—but the guiding intelligence clearly belonged to Theodate right from the start. She tapped into the expertise of her collaborators to achieve her vision. Unlike a typical McKim, Mead & White building, Riddle embraced a somewhat rambling, asymmetrical look for the exterior which perfectly complemented the charming and gracious interior. Inside the house, her carefully chosen wallpapers and furniture set off the Impressionist paintings her father loved to collect.

Other buildings on the property received her attention as well. She designed a carriage garage and Arts and Crafts theater, stone garages, various barns and a sheep shed, a silo, a stone pump house, and a tool-and-carpenter shop. To top it all off, she worked with the landscape architect Warren Manning to place the mansion and the working farm within a varied and picturesque landscape.

When Theodate died in 1946, her will stipulated that Hill-Stead become a museum as a memorial to her parents. According to the will, the contents were to remain intact, never to be moved, lent, or sold. The main house, as well as the farm buildings and gardens, remain a lasting testament to the vision of this early female architect.


Carpenters rebuilding the servants' porch foundation
and floor.  Photo by East West Builders.
Image courtesy of Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

Woodworker removing one of 174 five-foot-high
shutters.  Photo by East West Builders.  Image
courtesy of Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT. 

Pair of restored shutters reattached to the exterior of the newly repainted house.
Photo by Cynthia Cagenello.  Image courtesy of Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT. 


"Fumette" (1858) by James McNeill Whistler
(1834-1903).  Etching, fourth state, from
"The French Set," a series of 12 etchings.
6 3/8 x 4 1/4 in.
Alfred Atmore Pope Collection, Hill-Stead
Museum, Farmington, CT.
Notes from the Editor:  While the building itself is a distinctly American treasure, the collections within the house widen its value to international importance. Theodate’s father Alfred Pope was a smart and discerning collector of art, with a preference for Impressionist paintings and Japanese prints.

Pope traveled throughout the United States and Europe, amassing a collection of important paintings from such artists as Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Mary Cassatt. He also appreciated European prints, with purchases that included three engravings by Albrecht Dürer and 17 copper plate etchings and lithographs by James McNeill Whistler. Among his Japanese woodblock prints are works by Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Kitagawa Utamaro—artists among the most acclaimed of the Japanese masters.

"The Sea Monster" (ca. 1498) by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528).
Engraving, 9 15/16 x 7 1/2 in.
Alfred Atmore Pope Collection,
Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

"Kneeling Lady with Fan" (1790s) by Kitagawa Utamaro
(1753-1806).  Woodblock print from the series "Seasonal
Poems Composed by Famous Women."
10 7/16 x 15 3/16 in.
Alfred Atmore Pope Collection,
Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

Other Recommended Sites:  If you appreciate the architecture of Hill-Stead, you may enjoy visiting some of the other sites which Theodate Pope Riddle designed. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in New York City was reconstructed by Riddle on the site where it was demolished in 1916. Two of her most important commissions were for educational institutions that are still flourishing:  the Avon Old Farms School (Avon, CT) and Westover School (Middelbury, CT).

"Grainstacks, in Bright Sunlight" (1890) by Claude Monet (1840-1926).
Oil on canvas, 23 x 28 inches.
Alfred Atmore Pope Collection, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT.

Guest author for this entry:  Terry Price

Tour America's History Itinerary
Monday’s destination:  Weir Farm National Historic Site

© 2012 Lee and Terry Price

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