In Renowned rooms and gardens, we showcase historical homes, zooming in on a prominent room at each attraction. At Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens in Washington, D.C., we take a closer look at the Breakfast Room.
The spring and fall home of Marjorie Merriweather Post was Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens, and it features the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia, Post’s collection of French art from the 1700s, and 25 acres of landscaped gardens and natural woodlands. Post, who inherited General Foods, was a businesswoman and philanthropist among the wealthiest women of her time.
She took her less formal lunches and dinners in the estate’s Breakfast Room, a charming space connected to the grand dining room. Meredith DeSantis, the attraction’s special events and tourism manager in group sales, says the table was always set for four, and the room features some impressive elements.
“The bronze metalwork lining the room was repurposed from Marjorie’s 1920s apartment in New York City. The Russian gilt-bronze and green-glass chandelier from the late 1700s came from the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, one of the imperial estates outside St. Petersburg. The floral displays in the window make it difficult to tell where the garden ends and the room begins, an interaction of indoor and outdoor spaces notable throughout Hillwood,” she says.
For more information, email DeSantis or go to hillwoodmuseum.org.
Top photo by Hillwood Estate Museum & Gardens
Support for Courier articles provided by:
Cheekwood Estate & Gardens
History Colorado
The Huntington Library
