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At home at the Huntington
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A day at the Huntington can be many things but for me it is nearly always a visite complete of the former Beaux Arts mansion of Henry and Arabella Huntington—now a renovated gallery that houses their entire collection of European art. It is a walk through a world much like our own—a dining table set for dessert; a hearth gently scarred by wood charcoal; a timeworn recliner set by a window—except these rooms are uncommonly rich with celebrated works by French, British, and Dutch masters. Rare objets d’art line the halls; tightly carved frames bear the oeuvres of Gainsborough, Romney, Reynolds, Van Dyck and many others.
The exterior’s vast footprint encompasses an impressive array of architectural features: the north façade’s corps de logis is flanked by a porte cochere and extended by an expansive peristylar loggia. Massive stone columns, deeply carved dentils and corbels, elaborately scalloped masonry, and intricate detailing characteristic of Italian and Spanish renaissance styles, barely prepare the visitor for the plan’s considerable 55,000-square-foot interior.
I have toured hundreds of homes, modest to grand, and tend to rely on some version of the floor plan to orient myself to the varied functions of the rooms. While the Huntington has always seemed destined for a level of use beyond the residential, some evidence of the owners’ personal lifestyle still exists. Even on the upper level—now stripped of any evidence of the sleeping quarters—the structure and scale of the rooms suggests livability and comfort. Downstairs, the formal dining room links directly to an anteroom, which may have contained the butlers’ preparation and holding area.
An entry vestibule oriented toward the north vista lawn once opened to the south terrace, creating a fluid boundary for natural light and breezes. Densely layered period rooms reveal a practical sensibility, yet maintain a sense of volume articulated by a series of square arches and telescopic sight lines that carry the eye deep into the home. Rambling, banquet-sized spaces, subdued by warm palettes and richly appointed walls, are woven together by an intricate series of passageways that allow circulation and flexibility throughout the private realm.
I have a deep affinity for iconic art, and the upper level’s exhibit of 15th century paintings—part of the Arabella D. Huntington Memorial Art Collection—offers a striking assemblage of religious art, including Rogier van der Weyden’s exquisite Madonna and Child (circa 1460). Imbued with a potency we find hard to fathom, the iconoclastic art of the renaissance held powerful sway with believers, and still takes my breath away. But I am equally drawn to the sinewy curves of a well-made chair, and the furnishings found in the capacious rooms of the main floor often find me lingering long past what is generally permitted by an etiquette-savvy crowd. “Thank you, thank you,” urged a man in language laced with his native tongue. He politely motioned me aside, eager to have his picture taken by his friend in front of a shapely fauteuil. “Are you reading the placard?” A young man whispered behind me. “Would you move aside?”
Sure, I can be a tourist. I have a point-and-shoot camera the size of a credit card in the palm of my hand and I could easily snap and run toward the next room’s quiet vignette, like everyone else. But then the true value of walking these rooms would be lost on me. More than studying secretaires and writing desks, I am memorizing a lifestyle, or more accurately, a sizeable slice of historical culture in the place where I live. Well, no. Then again, I am rather looking at furniture.
Normally, I would view a grouping of gilded commodes and silk-laden bergères with an air of disdain. Too stuffy, I might say. Of course, the Huntingtons had a remedy for rarefied décor or at least—as the Huntington Gallery has demonstrated with the 2008 renovation—envisaged that visual saturation is a very good thing. The gallery’s referential scheme reconciles rare pieces from periods that span a couple of centuries. Handcarved rococo mirrors sidle next to über-rich mahogany; fine Beauvais tapestries mimic the complexity of hues of Savonnerie carpets designed for Louis XIV. Sèvres porcelain and Wedgwood vases; 19th-century ephemera and once-lost sculptures in bronze; French ceramics, British snuff boxes; fine silver, and stained glass, all live together in this house.
The Huntingtons were not frivolous people. The grand-scale entertaining for which the home was clearly designed never happened. In fact, not long after taking residence (in 1915) Henry and Arabella—who wed in their early sixties—began making plans to transfer their estate to the public after their deaths. This fact alone makes the Huntington great. I overheard a tepid conversation between visitors on the upper level on the politics of present-day benefactors versus the entrepreneurial spirit of the Huntingtons. More than gaining knowledge about art and architecture, we have much to learn from their sense of giving.
After nearly a century, the residence cum gallery remains one of our greatest cultural resources, and has become a place where many ethnicities, languages, and lifestyles come together—without the slightest regard to nationality or class—to walk among one of the finest collections of paintings and decorative arts anywhere. And they are great not because the works are famous—though many of them are—but because they reveal our very nature in the stroke of a brush or the flow of a line. The Huntington Gallery of Art preserves a rich moment in 20th century life, and in its galaxy of beauty—the beveled cut of a crystal chandelier, a hand-laid parquet floor, a gilt-leaf iconoclastic panel, or the steady gaze of The Blue Boy—we find a way to remember who we are.
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