Plestcheeff, Guendolen Carkeek, 1892-1994

Seattle civic leader and patron of the arts.

Guendolen Carkeek Plestcheeff was born in Seattle in 1892 at the First Hill mansion home of her parents, British-born Morgan and Emily Carkeek. She was married twice, first to Italian diplomat Paulo G. Brenna, and after their divorce in 1928, to Russian aristocrat Theodor Plestcheeff. The Plestcheeffs moved to Seattle following the death of Morgan Carkeek in 1931. In 1937, the Plestcheeffs bought the five-story 1909 stone mansion on East Highland Drive that was built by eccentric Seattle capitalist and "Good Roads" advocate Sam Hill. The house had fallen into disrepair since Hill's death and Guendolen Plestcheeff took charge of its renovation: she had the windows enlarged, installed a skylight and redesigned the rooms, decorating them with her own collection of European antiques. The Plestcheeffs also later bought and rejuvenated a waterfront cottage on Bainbridge Island as a summer home, placing the original iron gates from the old Carkeek mansion at the entrance to the property. Following in her mother's footsteps, in 1938 Plestcheeff became president of the Seattle Historical Society, a position she held for seventeen years. She began to raise money for a new home for the Society's historical artifacts, originally collected by her mother, and stored in the Plestcheeff's basement. After years of fundraising and political wranglings, the Seattle Historical Society acquired property off Lake Washington Boulevard, where the Museum of History & Industry opened in 1952. Though Theodor Plestcheeff died in 1967, his influence on his wife survived in her wish to share her enthusiasm for the decorative arts, and in tangible form in her extensive collection of Russian decorative ware. In 1987, Guendolen Plestcheeff established the Plestcheeff Institute for Decorative Arts, a non-profit center for research and education in the decorative arts, to be housed in the Sam Hill house, which was still her home. Plestcheeff willed the house and its contents to the University of Washington, after plans to donate the building to the Seattle Art Museum fell through. She lived in the mansion until her death in 1994 at the age of 101, and the building continued to serve as the Plestcheeff Institute for Decorative Arts for a few years afterward.

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