Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
Encyclopedia
River Oaks, Houston, Texas
River Oaks is an affluent community located in the geographic center of Houston, Texas, United States. Located within the 610 Loop and between Downtown and Uptown, the community spans . Established in the 1920s by brothers William and Michael Hogg, the community became a well-publicized national...
community in Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, is a 14 acres (56,656 m²) facility of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) that houses a collection of decorative art
Decorative art
The decorative arts is traditionally a term for the design and manufacture of functional objects. It includes interior design, but not usually architecture. The decorative arts are often categorized in opposition to the "fine arts", namely, painting, drawing, photography, and large-scale...
, paintings and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
. Bayou Bend is the former home of Houston philanthropist Ima Hogg
Ima Hogg
Ima Hogg , known as "The First Lady of Texas", was an American philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. Hogg was an avid art collector, and owned works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse, among others...
. Bayou Bend was marked with a Texas Historical Commission
Texas Historical Commission
The Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the state of Texas. It administers the National Register of Historic Places for sites in Texas....
marker in 1973 and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1979.
Mansion and gardens
John F. Staub
John F. Staub was a residential architect who designed numerous traditionally-styled homes and mansions, mostly in Houston, Texas, from the 1920s to 1960s. Originally from Tennessee, Staub received a masters degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916...
, was built between 1927 and 1928 for Ima Hogg
Ima Hogg
Ima Hogg , known as "The First Lady of Texas", was an American philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century. Hogg was an avid art collector, and owned works by Picasso, Klee, and Matisse, among others...
and her brothers, William C. and Michael Hogg. Covered in towering trees and thick undergrowth, the home site was, in Miss Hogg's words, "nothing but a dense thicket". The home was one of the first to be located in the River Oaks neighborhood developed by the Hogg brothers. During construction, Ima Hogg insisted that as many trees as possible be kept. Only one tree was sacrificed to make room for the house, and the gardens were created around the existing trees. Ima Hogg gave the home its name, over the objection of her brother Will, who said the name was "too muddy and 'muskeetery' and malarial". Ima responded that "not everyone can have a bayou".
Miss Hogg created a series of gardens that were intended as outdoor rooms for living and entertaining. In 1957, Miss Hogg donated her home and her collection to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Bayou Bend opened to the public in 1966.
Staub's plan for Bayou Bend combined eighteenth-century Georgian architecture with elements that are distinctly Southern and of Spanish Creole architecture. Other aspects of Bayou Bend's design are borrowed from Southern plantation houses. The interiors borrow more heavily from the architectural traditions of the North. Staub incorporated floorboards and paneling from two eighteenth-century Massachusetts houses in Miss Hogg's bedroom and sitting room. In February 1999, the city of Houston named Bayou Bend an official city landmark.
The heavily wooded 14 acres (5.7 ha) along Buffalo Bayou
Buffalo Bayou
Buffalo Bayou is a main waterway flowing through Houston, in Harris County, Texas, USA. It begins in Katy, Fort Bend County, Texas and flows approximately east to the Houston Ship Channel and then into Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico...
include eight formal gardens. Three of the gardens are named for a statue of a goddess or muse displayed in the garden, Clio, Diana and Euturpe. The other gardens are named White, East, Butterfly and Carla.
In September 2008, the winds of Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike was the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, the costliest hurricane ever to impact Cuba and the second most active hurricane to reach the Canadian mainland in the Great Lakes Region after Hurricane Hazel in 1954...
caused extensive damage to the gardens. Although none of the statues were damaged, between 65 and 70% of the pine tress on the grounds had fallen, as had an American holly tree, which at 55 feet (16.8 m) was the tallest of its kind in Harris County, Texas
Harris County, Texas
As of the 2010 Census, the population of the county was 4,092,459, White Americans made up 56.6% of Harris County's population; non-Hispanic whites represented 33.0% of the population. Black Americans made up 18.9% of the population. Native Americans made up 0.7% of Harris County's population...
. Bart Brechter, the Curator of Gardens at the museum, estimated that it would take 5 months to clear the debris and could take years to bring the gardens to their former state.
Collection
The collection at Bayou Bend presently consists of approximately 4,700 objects that reflect historic and stylistic periods from 1620 to 1870 installed in some 28 period room settings that showcase American decorative arts from 1620 through 1870. Miss Hogg began assembling this important collection of American decorative arts in 1920. To provide suitable settings for these extraordinary antiques, Staub designed simple but stately interiors in the style of colonial American rooms.In 1920, while sitting for a portrait by artist Wayman Adams, Miss Hogg admired a simple armchair belonging to the artist that was made in colonial America and later obtained a similar Queen Anne chair for herself. Almost half a century later, Miss Hogg acquired the very same chair that she had first seen in Adams' studio. "From the time I acquired my first Queen Anne armchair in 1920, I had an unaccountable compulsion to make an American collection for some Texas museum." The collection also contains notable objects from outside America, including English ceramics used in Colonial America.