Mendofleur

May I introduce you to Samuel Hill, “Visionary. Entrepreneur. World traveler. Road and monument builder. Philanthropist. Friend to royalty.”
And “the principal founder of the Maryhill Museum”. [Maryhill Museum of Art by Linda Brady Tesner]

Samuel was really quite huge…a larger than life person. He was someone you would probably be drawn to in conversation or presence, a contender for that charismatic space in a room. He designed Maryhill as a place that would be a Quaker agricultural community, a home for his wife and eventually the family, a daughter and a son. This became a lost dream in some ways. His wife would never join him in the West. Their lives were essentially estranged. And the Quaker community never came to fruition.

Living in Portland is synonymous with bicycles and green energy. What I find so intriguing is that Samuel Hill was really a grass roots person. He would have fit into this city/town very well at that particular time. From Tesner’s guide, she describes Hill as “a proponent of a cause that would remain a passionate avocation throughout his lifetime: the Good Roads Movement.” This was originally initiated by a group of bicyclists, The League of American Wheelmen, but this quickly grew as a movement to develop roads for commerce, self defense, and tourism. Knowing present-day Portland as I do, this might certainly be where Hill would have parted company from the grass roots contenders of today. But that is now, and we are going back in time.

So what was it exactly that captured my imagination while I was there on this perfect Tuesday along the Gorge with no wind, blue sky, and sunshine? Here I was in the middle of nowhere, literally, in a world class museum surrounded by brilliance, fine art, royalty, French culture, astounding beauty, and flamboyant peacocks wandering around in the gardens. I had to pinch myself to think it could have been this good, but it was!

And so why would this place stand as a jewel along the Columbia Gorge? It was graced by royalty, Queen Marie of Roumania, entranced by Loie Fuller, famous for modern dance, and Alma Spreckels, the wife of sugar magnate Adolf Spreckels. So here we are with three unusual artistic women supporting and adding delight and wonderment to a place without a place, so to speak. As Gertrude Stein would have said about Oakland, California, “There is no there…there”. But these three women, along with Samuel Hill, put Maryhill Museum on the map as a place that seemed to be “there”.