Elk Rock Garden (previously known as The Garden of the Bishop’s Close) was created over a period of many years by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kerr. Mr. Kerr was a Scot who arrived in Portland in 1888 and started a grain business with a partner, Patrick Gifford. Kerr, his business partner, and Kerr’s brother Thomas, purchased the 13 acre parcel of land known as Elk Rock in the early 1890’s. The three bachelors formed the Cliff Cottage Club and lived in the Cottage for several years before marriages left Peter Kerr as the property’s sole occupant. Peter Kerr married Laurie King in 1905 and settled her in at Cliff Cottage.
After the births of two daughters, Anne and Jane, construction of a larger house commenced. The new house was designed by Ellis Lawrence and sited by John Olmsted, of the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects firm, to take advantage of the view of Mt. Hood.
Construction of the house, which was designed to resemble a Scottish manor house, took two years to complete. Once the house was finished, Kerr, an ardent amateur gardener, began executing his long cherished plans for an extensive garden. Mrs. Kerr was one of Portland’s early championship golfers and, while not a gardener herself, she encouraged her husband in the creation of one of the great gardens of the Northwest.
In 1957, when Mr. Kerr died at the age of ninety-five, the house and garden were given by his daughters, Anne McDonald and Jane Platt, to the Episcopal Bishop of Oregon along with an endowment for the care and maintenance of the garden, with the stipulation that the garden be opened to visitors. Since 1986 the garden has been managed by a Garden Committee. In 1994, the Elk Rock Garden Foundation and the Friends of Elk Rock Garden Foundation were formed to protect, preserve and perpetuate this wonderful garden.
In 2023, the Episcopalian Diocese of Oregon decided to sell the property. Descendants of Peter Kerr repurchased the property later that year, allowing Elk Rock Garden to remain open to the public. The Elk Rock Garden residence is now being used as office and meeting space for mission-aligned nonprofit organizations, including the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon.
Sources: Oregon Encyclopedia and The Cultural Landscape Foundation