Hill-Stead: The House a Woman Architect Built for Impressionism
Near Hartford, Connecticut
On a hundred and fifty-two hilltop acres in Farmington, Connecticut, stands Hill-Stead, a Colonial Revival mansion completed in nineteen oh one and designed by Theodate Pope Riddle, one of the first licensed female architects in the United States. She designed the house for her father, Alfred Pope, a Cleveland industrialist who had spent years assembling one of the finest private collections of French Impressionist paintings in America.
More than forty Impressionist works filled the rooms: Monet, Degas, Whistler, Cassatt. Theodate stipulated in her will that the house become a museum after her death in nineteen forty-six and that the collection remain in place, hung as it was during the family's life. Hill-Stead opened to the public in nineteen forty-seven and has welcomed more than a million visitors since. It remains one of the rare early-twentieth-century country estates that survived intact, art and all.
