by Last year Doug and I visited the Washington, D.C. estate Hillwood, and both the home and its owner, Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887 –1973), seemed so over-the-top that I added a book about her to my reading list.
Thanks to my imminent library card termination, I finally got around to reading American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post by Nancy Rubin. What a ride!
Marjorie was the only child of C.W. Post, the founder of Postum Cereal, which subsequently became General Foods Corporation.
Upon her father’s death in 1914, when she was just age 27, she became the owner of the company, inheriting a $20 million fortune.
For much of her life, she was considered to be one of the wealthiest women in the United States. She certainly lived like she was.
She bought estates, yachts, airplanes, clothing, jewels and artwork with abandon. She did the same with her husbands, going through four of them at a time when one divorce was scandalous, never mind four!
Post remained active in the family business throughout her life, though often through her husband-at-the-time, as it was considered uncouth for a woman to do any business. However, she was a respected businessperson and was considered to be very knowledgeable and capable. She remained a director until 1958.
Primarily with her second husband, E.F. Hutton, the Postum Company acquired such companies as Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, Jell-O, Baker’s Chocolate, and Maxwell House. She was one of the first to recognize the impact that frozen foods could have on American households, acquiring what was a local company at the time, Birdseye; it’s hard to imagine now, but at the time grocery stores didn’t even have freezer cases – I mean, this was revolutionary.
Post was an active philanthropist, supporting many charitable organizations and founding an Army hospital during WWI. During the Great Depression she financed a Salvation Army feeding station in New York.
Post is known for her extensive Russian art and religious icon collection, which started when her third husband, Joseph E. Davies, was assigned to be the 2nd United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1936. At that time the Russian government was disposing of art treasures seized from aristocrats in the Russian Revolution in order to raise cash. Marjorie and Joseph were delighted with their finds (and later fought extensively over dividing them up in their divorce proceedings).
Post’s Hillwood home was one of her primary residences. It’s where she chose to be buried after her death in 1973. The home had fifteen-foot ceilings, a view of Washington Monument, a chandelier from the Russian Catherine Palace hanging in her breakfast nook, among so many other treasures.
The Hillwood Estate now operates as a private museum, displaying her French and Russian art collection, including Fabergé eggs, Sèvres porcelain, French furniture, tapestries, paintings and more. A greenhouse houses one of the country’s finest orchid collections, and of course the outdoor gardens are lovely and extensive.
Post’s other surviving estate is a little place called Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida –– perhaps you’ve heard of it? Fortunately, it’s not open to the general public, so I won’t have to wrestle with my conscious about whether or not to go there.
