Rienzi Historic Garden

Open to the public since 1999, Rienzi is a house museum that holds the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston ("MFAH") collection of European decorative arts. Rienzi occupies 4.4 acres on the banks of Buffalo Bayou in the heart of the River Oaks neighborhood in central Houston.

The gardens, designed in the 1950's by noted landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn, are an artful blend of formal gardens and native Texas woodlands. The formal gardens tier gracefully downhill to the bayou, surrounded by two steep, wooded ravines.

For 25 years the restoration and care of the gardens has been a financially supported community project of The Garden Club of Houston ("GCH"). GCH members chair the MFAH Rienzi Garden subcommittee and work collaboratively with Bart Brechter, the museum's Head of Gardens and Landscapes, to restore and maintain this historic garden.

On May 16, 2024 the Houston area was hit by a severe storm called a derecho. A derecho is a widespread, long-lived band of storms that can produce hurricane force straight line winds. Although derechos move rapidly, they can produce damage over hundreds of square miles. Along with most of the Houston area, Rienzi was in the path of the May 16th derecho and suffered the loss of at least three mature trees; two water oaks and a white oak.

Then in July of 2024 Houston was in the path of Hurricane Beryl. This second major storm also proved destructive. In Beryl, two magnolias, two water oaks and a large red oak were lost. Both storms damaged small understory plant material.

Because Rienzi is an historic garden, funds will be used to replace the lost trees with the same genus and species in the same locations within the formal gardens. Trees replanted in the wooded ravines may require some adjustment to location as the site slope permits. Bart Brechter has built relationships with several growers in Louisiana in order to source azalea and camellia varieties from the original Gunn landscape plan. Many are no longer commercially available. Lost azaleas and camellias will be replaced with the original heritage varieties, as they become available.