Palace Stands In Isolated Splendor Above Columbia River

If you made a list of the expensively eccentric pre-World War I homes in the Northwest, it would be a very short list, and Maryhill would be at the head of it.

The region didn’t attracted the kind of people who built exotic residences back in the days before federal income tax, when millionaires were actually rich. Thus the Northwest has no California crazies: no Hearst Castles or Winchester Mystery Houses, no Death Valley Scotties.

The Maryhill Museum of Art is the best the Northwest can do, and if it weren’t for the efforts of a California philanthropist, it probably wouldn’t exist at all.

The museum stands in isolated splendor on the bleak, sagebrush-strewn section of the Columbia River 100 miles east of Portland and 60 miles south of Yakima. The scenery consists of sheer basalt cliffs with spiky spires jutting out of the barren countryside. It has its own kind of beauty, but nothing like the mountains, timber and waterfall scenery of the Columbia Gorge a few miles downstream.

It is easy to imagine how remote it was when the Seattle attorney and entrepreneur Sam Hill bought 7,000 acres in 1907 and, seven years later, started building his palace.

Hill liked to recycle names: He married the daughter of the railroad tycoon, James J. Hill, thus relieving her the task of learning a new signature. Her name was Mary. So was her mother’s.

When their daughter was born, of course they named her Mary.

When Sam Hill decided to found a utopian farm out in the middle of nowhere with his mansion as a centerpiece, he considered naming it Maryland but decided against competing with a state for attention. So he named it Maryhill.

According to one of the Hill legends, Sam’s wife - who went by the nickname of Mamie - hated the idea of Maryhill so much that she got no closer to it than their mansion on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill. She eventually moved to Washington, D.C., and stayed there.

But Sam Hill was no quitter. He had the European-chateau-style mansion started anyway, and began trying to import a group of Quakers who shared his pacifist philosophy. He built them a meeting hall and a few other buildings as further enticement, but the Quakers wanted no part of that sun- and wind-blasted countryside. There was too much fertile, well-watered land available elsewhere to subject themselves to Hill’s dreams of an Eden in the desert.

Hill kept building, and included a driveway ramp that went right through the house so guests could alight out of the weather directly indoors.

The mansion sat unfinished and empty through the years of World War I. After peace returned to Europe, President Herbert Hoover appointed Hill to a commission to help with the reconstruction of Europe. It was there he met three women who were responsible for Maryhill becoming a museum: Loie Fuller, a modern-dance pioneer at the Folies Bergere; Alma Spreckles of the California sugar family; and Queen Marie of Rumania, whose country Hill aided during the recovery period.

It was Loie Fuller’s idea to turn the empty mansion into a museum, and she arranged for him to meet members of the Parisian artistic community. That, in turn, led to his buying the large Auguste Rodin collection and the Theatre de la Mode, a collection of miniature French fashion mannequins.

When the 1926 dedication of the still-unfinished museum was near, Queen Marie agreed to come to New York and cross America by train to attend the ceremonies. She brought a large collection of furniture, jewelry, clothing and religious objects which she donated to the museum.

Newspaper reporters assigned to the story were skeptical of the Queen’s intentions, and of the details of her friendship with the American millionaire. They hounded her train all across the nation, and wrote harsh stores about her. But Hill’s characteristic positive outlook and the Queen’s experience with greater adversity than rude questions kept the occasion on an even keel.

The museum wasn’t complete when Hill died in 1931, so Alma Spreckles took over. She donated several pieces from her extensive art collection and saw to it that the museum was completed and opened in 1940.

About three miles upriver from the museum, just east of Highway 97, Hill built a replica of England’s Stonehenge as it might have looked when it was intact, and dedicated it to the Klickitat County soldiers who died in World War I. Hill was buried in a crypt overlooking the river just below the Stonehenge monument. Adjoining Stonehenge is the Maryhill State Park on the Columbia, with a swimming area and boat launch, picnic areas, 50 overnight campsites with restrooms and hot showers.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: If you go Maryhill Museum is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily from March 15 through November 15. Its Cafe Maryhill serves gourmet coffee, beverages and snacks, and has both indoor and patio seating. Museum admission is $4 adults and $1.50 children. Highway 97, the north-south route through the desert, runs a mile or two from Maryhill and just across the bridge in Oregon is the junction town of Biggs, mostly a truck stop. It has several motels and a truck-stop restaurant with telephones at each booth and a menu that emphasizes patty melts and burgers. The nearest upscale lodging is in The Dalles, about 20 miles west, with four or five motels, the largest is the Shilo Inn ((503) 298-5502) with 80 units, a pool and restaurant. Due north 13 miles on Highway 97 is the farming and ranching town of Goldendale, which has two or three modest motels and country-cooking restaurants. It is another 60 miles to Yakima. About an hour’s drive east up the Columbia near the farming town of Paterson is Columbia Crest, the largest winery in Eastern Washington. Sitting on the top of a hill overlooking the river and across into Oregon, Columbia Crest produces more than a million gallons of wine each year. The tasting room and gift shop are open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Information: (509) 875-2061.