Maryhill, Washington — Mansion That Found a Better Purpose

Sam Hill began building an enormous concrete mansion above the Columbia in the early twentieth century as a home for himself and his wife, Mary. She did not want to live there.

Hill changed course, and the unfinished residence eventually became Maryhill Museum of Art. The pivot fits a man whose projects rarely stayed ordinary.

He built an experimental paved road to demonstrate modern highway engineering and commissioned a full-scale concrete Stonehenge replica as a World War I memorial. Together, those projects gave the rural Maryhill landscape an unusual collection of architecture, art and transportation history.

The mansion never became the family home Hill intended. Its second life turned out to be far more public—and far more durable.