The Wilkins Estate is a historic estate in

Rockville, Maryland Rockville is a city in and the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, and is part of the Washington metropolitan area. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census tabulated Rockville's population at 67,117, making it the fourth ...

, built in 1916 by Robert Crew Wilkins, later an executive of the Wilkins Coffee Co. (later a part of

Maxwell House Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz in North America and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world. Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek, it was named in honor of the Ma ...

coffee), founded in 1923 in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, by a relation, John H. Wilkins, Sr.

Wilkins era

Robert Wilkins had the estate built with the intention of using it as his summer home. The mansion on the grounds was designed by a noted architect,

John Russell Pope John Russell Pope (April 24, 1874 – August 27, 1937) was an American architecture, architect whose firm is widely known for designing major public buildings, including the National Archives and Records Administration building (completed in 193 ...

, in the

Classical Revival Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassic ...

style and is considered a historic site. The estate later passed to his brother, John Franklin Wilkins.

Parklawn Memorial Park & Menorah Gardens

The estate passed out of family hands in 1950, being sold to George Moss, who opened Parklawn Memorial Park & Menorah Gardens on the property the following year. The Marlowe family soon purchased an interest in it in 1958 and full ownership in 1986.

Stewart Enterprises Stewart Enterprises, Inc., a provider of funeral and cemetery services, was founded in 1910 and grew to be the second-largest company of its kind in the United States before it was acquired in 2013. As of 1991, the year it went public, the compa ...

bought the cemetery in 1992. The mansion serves as the cemetery office. The grounds of the cemetery have expanded to hold the remains of some 5,000 people.

References

External links

* – Dignity Memorial * {{coord, 39, 3, 58, N, 77, 6, 30, W, region:US-MD_type:landmark, display=title John Russell Pope buildings 1910s architecture in the United States Neoclassical architecture in Maryland Historic sites in Maryland Buildings and structures in Montgomery County, Maryland Houses completed in 1916 Cemeteries in Maryland Cemeteries established in the 1910s 1916 establishments in Maryland