Houston’s Bayou Bend: A Philanthropist’s Collection and Gardens

In this installment of “Larger Than Life: Architecture Through the Ages,” we visit a classic American home, now a museum, on the Gulf Coast.

Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens was built on a site of dense foliage and thickets. The two-story, 24-room house is of tile block construction and then finished externally with pink stucco; the pink color referred to pink quartz crushed into stucco found in ancient Greek architecture. The stucco was later painted a pale pink. Unadorned columns and a wrought-iron decorative centerpiece balcony reflect the early southern plantation style. Courtesy of the Museum of fine Arts, Houston

Bayou Bend was always more of an antique and art exhibit space than a home. Early 20th-century philanthropist Ima Hogg (1882–1975) worked with architect John Staub (1892–1981) on the design of a mansion to sit on a 14-acre site in Houston’s River Oaks community. It would showcase her extensive collection of primarily 17th- to 19th-century American antiques, Native American art, and works by famous painters and sculptors.

The mansion’s design reveals elements of early (1830–1860) southern plantation architecture, including essentials of neoclassical, 18th-century Georgian, and Spanish Creole style. Construction on the mansion began in 1927 and was completed the next year. Houston landscape architect Ruth London (1892–1966) designed Bayou Bend’s East Garden; the Houston-based landscape firm Fleming and Sheppard designed the Diana Garden and the north terrace.