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arjorie Merriweather Post was born on March 15, 1887 in Springfield,
Illinois, the only child of Charles William Post (known as
C.W.) and Ella Merriweather Post. Her father championed healthy
living and found his fame in a nutritious substitute for coffee
called Postum. Soon after, he formulated Grape-Nuts, establishing
the nation’s first breakfast food industry. In 1905,
Marjorie married her first husband, Edward Bennett Close,
and her father built the couple a house in Greenwich, Connecticut,
where the Closes’ two eldest daughters were born -- Adelaide
in 1908 and Eleanor in 1909.
Marjorie, a graduate of Mount Vernon Seminary,
began to develop her interest in art and architecture by attending
courses at a nearby private school. In 1912, her mother Ella
died, and two years later her ailing father C.W. died, making
Marjorie the sole heir to the Postum Company at the age of
27. The Closes purchased their next home – the five-story
Beaux-Arts Burden Mansion, one of the finest houses on Fifth
Avenue in New York. It featured a Louis XVI-style drawing
room and dining room, which Marjorie furnished with the help
of interior designer Mitchell Samuels of French and Company
and the respected art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen, a specialist
in Old Master paintings and decorative arts.
Sir Joseph became Marjorie’s mentor
and encouraged her to attend courses on tapestries, porcelain
and furniture, sponsored by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Marjorie bought three of her first major pieces through Duveen,
including the Beauvais tapestries designed by François
Boucher that now hang in the French Drawing Room at Hillwood.
She also acquired important Rubens and Gainsborough paintings,
which she later sold, as well as a notable selection of 18th-century
fine French furniture.
In 1919 the Closes divorced, and soon
after Marjorie married financier Edward F. Hutton. The couple
went on to build properties in Palm Beach, Long Island and
the Adirondacks – the Long Island estate (also called
Hillwood) was situated on 177 acres and the 207-acre Adirondacks
camp surrounded by water, called Hutridge, displayed Mrs.
Post’s collection of Indian artifacts. In 1923, E.F.
Hutton became the chairman of the board of the Postum Cereal
Company, which was expanded into a larger line of food products
that included Birdseye Frozen Foods at the encouragement of
Marjorie, a shrewd businesswoman who foresaw the value of
prepared food in an age of increasingly independent women.
At this time, the company became General Foods Corporation.
In 1923, Marjorie gave birth to her third
daughter Nedenia, known today as the actress Dina Merrill.
The Huttons constructed a luxurious 14-story apartment building
on the former site of Burden Mansion, and in 1926 moved into
a palatial penthouse apartment in the building. The largest
apartment ever constructed at the time, it included 54 rooms
with accommodations for 18 staff members. Fast becoming an
experienced collector, Marjorie began acquiring works for
the penthouse, including 18th-century French decorative furniture
from top New York dealers such as Sir Joseph Duveen, who sold
her a Louis XV jewelry coffer inset with Sèvres porcelain
plaques by Martin Carlin [no longer in her collection at Hillwood]
and a Louis XVI commode by Riesener. She acquired important
paintings from Wildenstein & Co., such as the celebrated
portrait The Duchess of Parma and her Daughter Isabelle by
Natier in 1922. In those years, she also acquired her cherished
roll-top desk by the German master cabinetmakers Abraham and
David Roentgen.
As the importance of her collection grew,
Marjorie began to commission various scholars to prepare a
catalogue of her holdings in 1924. That same year, she sold
her Palm Beach home and began construction of Mar-a-Lago,
a 114-room mansion located on 17 acres between Lake Worth
and the Atlantic, designed by architect and Ziegfeld set designer
Joseph Urban. In 1931, the couple also christened Hussar V
(later renamed the Sea Cloud), which was touted as the largest
private sailing yacht in the world. In 1935 the Huttons divorced
and in 1936 Marjorie joined the Board of Directors of General
Foods, becoming one of the first women to join the board of
directors of a major American corporation. That same year,
she met Joseph E. Davies, an accomplished Washington lawyer,
and they married and settled in D.C. Soon after, President
Franklin Deleano Roosevelt appointed Davies ambassador to
the Soviet Union, and the couple moved to Moscow in 1937.
Marjorie immediately became enamored with
Russia and its fine and decorative arts, becoming a pioneer
collector of Russian imperial works of art long before they
were widely recognized or appreciated in the West. Following
the Bolshevik Revolution and assassination of Nicholas II
and his family, the imperial family’s personal belongings
and liturgical treasures confiscated from churches were being
sold at "commission shops" by Soviet authorities
to fund the revolution and industrialization of Russia. At
this time, Marjorie began the nucleus of her Russian collection,
and she developed her passion for pieces with connections
to the Romanovs and other royal families.
In 1940, after Davies’ ambassadorial
career ended, the couple moved back to D.C., where they bought
an elegant Georgian mansion and Italianate garden designed
by American Beaux-Arts architect Charles A. Platt. Marjorie
extensively renovated the house, called Tregaron, creating
a "Treasury Room" with display cabinets for her
most exquisite Russian pieces. She continued to enlarge her
Russian collection, buying from leading dealers such as Alexander
Schaffer of A La Vieille Russie, Viktor Hammer of the Hammer
Galleries in New York and Emanuel Snowman of Wartski in London.
Marjorie sold her Long Island home, now the C.W. Post College,
in 1947. The Davies divorced in 1955, dividing their collection
of Russian objects, many of which Marjorie purchased following
Davies’ death, including the grand state portrait of
Catherine the Great, which hangs in the Entry Hall at Hillwood.
Marjorie bought Hillwood in 1955 and immediately
decided her home would be a museum that would preserve and
exhibit her collection for the inspiration and education of
the public. She once said: "I am particularly attracted
by the beauty of an object, its craftsmanship, history ...
When I began [collecting], I did it for the joy of it, and
it was only as the collections grew and such great interest
was evidenced by others, that I came to the realization that
the collection should belong to the country."
She hired French and Company and architect
Alexander McIlvaine to redesign and expand Hillwood, formerly
called Arbremont, and she requested that nearly every room
on the first floor feature built-in lighted display cases.
The principal decorator for the interior of the 36-room mansion
was the esteemed New York firm of French and Company, as well
as McMillen, Inc. She hired the respected landscape architects
Innocenti and Webel to design the elegant French parterre
and noted landscape architect Shogo J. Myaida to design the
Japanese-style garden – one of first installed in the
U.S. following World War II.
In 1957, Marjorie moved into Hillwood,
which was fully equipped as an exhibition space, as well as
an ideal venue for her philanthropic and social events. Known
for her elegant parties and generous hospitality, she brought
out her best antique porcelain and finest silver for guests,
who often exceeded 200 and included leading politicians, socialites
and celebrities. In 1958, Marjorie married Pittsburgh executive
Herbert May and after they divorced six years later, she reclaimed
her maiden name, which she used for the rest of her life.
In her latter years, Marjorie continued to entertain at Hillwood,
Mar-A-Lago and in the Adirondacks. She also continued to actively
collect.
In 1958, one year after she moved to Hillwood,
Marjorie hired Harvard-educated scholar Marvin Chauncey Ross,
former curator of Byzantine art at the Walters Art Gallery
in Baltimore, as a full-time curator of her collections. Under
his leadership, a museum-quality recording system was instituted,
as well as a publishing program and formalized conservation
and acquisitions procedures. Ross assisted with researching
and selecting pieces, including another Riesener commode purchased
from Duveen Brothers, Inc., and he brought experts to examine
the collection. He also built the core of Hillwood’s
research library, published major scholarly texts on Russian
decorative arts, gave lectures across the country and trained
Hillwood’s first docents.
In 1969, Marjorie left Hillwood to the
Smithsonian, with the condition that she maintain life tenancy
and that her collection "be recognized as a significant
cultural heritage." The Marjorie Merriweather Post Foundation
of the District of Columbia, under the direction of Marjorie’s
daughter Adelaide, eventually resumed operations of Hillwood,
opening the estate to the public in 1977. During the partnership
with the Smithsonian, Marjorie acquired several important
pieces, including Konstantin Makovskii's A Boyar Wedding Feast
(1883) and Madame Augusto Rosso’s collection of Russian
icons and decorative objects, now on view in the dacha at
Hillwood (which was bequeathed to the Smithsonian). It wasn’t
until Marjorie was in her 80s that she found one of the most
superb gems of her collection -- the gold and diamond I.W.
Buch chalice, one of the finest in the world.
In 1973 Marjorie died and, at her request,
her ashes were placed in a monument installed in her rose
garden. She bequeathed Mar-A-Lago to the government for a
winter White House, it was returned to the Hillwood Foundation
in 1980 and purchased in 1985 by Donald Trump who later converted
it into a private club. She also donated her Adirondacks camp
to the state of New York. The residence is now privately owned.
Throughout her life Marjorie generously
funded numerous charities and was an ardent supporter of her
country. In 1932, she received the "Cross of Honor"
from the United States Flag Association and was awarded a
medal from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for heading a women's
watchdog committee to uphold the ethics of judges, lawyers
and public officials. Marjorie was known for her annual American
Red Cross International Ball, for setting up soup kitchens
in New York during the Depression and for contributing to
the Soviet War Relief of World War II, the Boy Scouts of America
and the National Symphony Orchestra's "Music for Young
America" program.
Marjorie twice funded a field hospital
in France during World War I and was awarded the French government's
highest civilian award, the Cross of a Chevalier of the Legion
of Honor, on behalf of her "long demonstrated friendship
towards France." She donated her yacht, the Sea Cloud,
to the U.S. Navy in World War II, and she entertained Vietnam
veterans at her Hillwood estate in Washington in the 1960s.
Over the years, she donated millions of dollars to charities.
She quietly gave $100,000 to build the Kennedy Center and
bequeathed endowments of $100,000 each to her alma mater Mount
Vernon College, the National Symphony Orchestra, C.W. Post
College and the American Red Cross.
"While she always lived like a queen,"
wrote The New York Times, "she has always given like
a philanthropist." Her obituary in the Congressional
Record quoted Senator Jennings Randolph who said, "[T]here
was a gentleness yet firmness in Mrs. Post’s life. She
was thoughtful and helpful to thousands of people, yet she
was a strong woman of sound business sense … She achieved
much for herself and for other people. She was a patron of
the arts and a patriot of her country. Perhaps we shall never
know again such a dynamic woman so devoted to beauty and so
dedicated to wholesome service."
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