Peter Kerr, prominent Oregon grain exporter, businessman, and civic leader, was born in Newton Stewart, Scotland in 1861, the son of Thomas and Anne Dewar Kerr. After working as a young man in London for the grain exporting firm of Dewar and Webb, owned in part by his uncle, James C. Dewar, he traveled throughout the world as an agent of the company. He finally settled in Portland in 1889, working as a commission agent until 1894, when he partnered with William S. Sibson to form Sibson & Kerr shipping agents. In 1899, he established his own grain exporting business with his brother Thomas Kerr (1865-1926) and Patrick B. Gifford, called Kerr Gifford & Co. The three partners lived in "Cliff Cottage," on the Elk Rock estate on Military Lane in the Dunthorpe area south of Portland (also known as Rivera and Abernethy Heights), where they entertained with golf and tennis parties and chronicled their activities in scrapbooks and photographs.
In 1905, Peter purchased the estate, and in 1916 he built a large house to replace Cliff Cottage. He planted an extensive garden, the design for which he had begun in 1897, and these gardens are now open to the public. The house itself, designed by Ellis Lawrence, became the seat of the Episcopal Diocese in 1958 and is now known as the Bishop's Close. The Kerrs also had a beach house on the Oregon coast at Gearhart, designed by architect Pietro Belluschi in the mid-1940s.
Peter Kerr was married to Laurie King (1877-1959) in 1905, and the couple had two daughters: Anne (1906-2001), married in 1933 to Sir James McDonald, British consul in Oregon; and Jane, who married John W. S. Platt in 1939. Peter Kerr died in 1957 at the age of 95.
Thomas Kerr was married to Mabel Macleay (1876-1973), daughter of prominent Portland businessman Donald Macleay (1834-1897), in 1900. The couple lived at High Hatch on Military Lane in the Dunthorpe area south of Portland. They had three sons: Donald Macleay (1907-1945), Thomas, Jr. (Tommy) (1910-1982), and George A. D. (1914-2004). Mabel Macleay and Laurie King were lifelong friends, and their families, including Mabel's brother Roderick Lachlan Macleay (b. 1874) and Laurie's mother, Laura Dodge King, traveled and spent much of their leisure time together.
From the guide to the Kerr family collection, 1816-1968, (Oregon Historical Society)
