Landscape Information
This 25-acre estate designed by landscape architect Willard Gebhart overlooks Rock Creek Park in northwest Washington, D.C., and includes a Georgian-style mansion designed by John Deibert in 1926 for Colonel and Mrs. Henry Parsons Erwin.
In 1955, cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post purchased the property and renamed it Hillwood. The mansion was renovated to house her vast collections of imperial Russian and eighteenth century French decorative art. Thirteen acres of the estate were redesigned for her by a variety of landscape architects. This includes a French Parterre garden by Innocenti and Webel created to complement her collection of eighteenth century French furnishings and decorative arts; a circular rose garden with a curving pergola by Perry Wheeler (who also worked on the garden’s Friendship Walk); and a Japanese-influenced pleasure garden later refined by Shogo Myaida. Garden “rooms,” defined by hedges or large plantings, include a putting green, greenhouses (with a dedicated orchid curator), cutting garden, lunar lawn, and vista terrace, in addition to twelve acres of woodland.
