Maryhill Museum of Art

Maryhill Museum of Art is a multi-gallery art museum in Samuel Hill’s hilltop mansion above the eastern Columbia River Gorge in south-central Washington. The permanent rooms range from Auguste Rodin and Indigenous art to Art Nouveau glass, Orthodox icons, fashion, and international chess sets. More than 400 chess sets are in the collection, with over 80 on display. If you like a museum that moves between very different subjects, this is a good east-end Gorge stop. The famous Stonehenge replica is a separate memorial three miles east, not part of the museum.

In 1907, road builder Samuel Hill bought land along the Columbia for a planned Quaker farming community. Irrigation problems and the area's remoteness stalled work on his mansion in 1917. Modern-dance pioneer Loïe Fuller persuaded Hill to turn the unfinished house into a museum and helped assemble its collection, including more than 80 Rodin works. Queen Marie of Romania dedicated the unfinished museum in 1926; it opened to the public in 1940 after Alma de Bretteville Spreckels helped complete it. That unusual path from private project to public museum is part of what makes the building worth seeing between the galleries.

Give the galleries time, then step onto the grounds for views from the bluff over the Columbia. If you photograph the exterior, try to include the river with the building; the setting is part of the story here. Loïe’s Museum Café serves pastries and lunch along with coffee and wine, with Gorge views. The museum has free parking and is wheelchair accessible; a ramp serves the historic entrance, staff can open plaza-level doors on request, and wheelchairs are available free at the entrance. The public season runs March 15 through November 15, with a winter closure. Find it on Washington’s SR 14 just west of US 97, across Biggs Rapids–Sam Hill Bridge from I-84.