Friday, July 19, 2013

A Day Trip To The Hill-Stead

Yesterday we were planning on going to the New Britain Museum of American Art but all the library passes were out so I picked up a pass to the Hill-Stead Museum. I had never been there before but it was on my list museums to visit.

When we got there the woman in the gift shop asked if we wanted to go on the tour? I was really wasn’t interesting a guided tour but the friend I was with said yes. Well it turned out that was the right answer because the Hill-Stead isn’t like an ordinary museum, they only have tours. It was the retirement home of the Pope family and it used to be a working farm back in the 1901 when it was built; her father was the president of Cleveland Malleable Iron Company and it was his daughter that created the Hill-Stead Trust when she died. She was a woman ahead of her time.

They were from Ohio and they sent their daughter back east to go to a finishing school for girls, Miss Poter's, that is also located in Farmington just down the road from the Hill-Stead. Theodate Pope (born Effie Pope in 1867, she changed her name in 1886) went on to become an influential architect, she designed many local building in Connecticut and New York and she was the fourth registered woman architect in the nation and she became a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1918 (You can read more about at the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame, on the Hill-Stead website and an excellent website “Theodate Pope Riddle Her Life and Architecture")

Theodate Pope Riddle from Joe Colombatto on Vimeo.

About the Hill-Stead Museum:

Alfred Atmore Pope collected "avant-garde" works that would inspire him, such as French Impressionism with works of Edgar Degas and Claude Monet and he also liked the works of James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt and Edouard Manet. As part of Theodate Pope will Hill-Stead is preserved with all the original art and furnishing, they will never leave the estate. As one of the other women said in the tour that this was the only place where she has seen a Monet as it was meant to be viewed, in a living room over a fireplace.

Later the as we were touring the house’s library the same woman pointed to a book and said, "Is that 'Godey’s Lady Book'?” and the tour guide said yes pointing to a row of books and said that they are only opened for members to view once in awhile.

After the tour we walked in the near 100o heat for a little bit in the sunken garden next to the house and the horse barn, then we hurried back to the air conditioned car.
The afternoon was well spent touring the house.

No comments:

Post a Comment