Rienzi is the MFAH house museum for European decorative arts. Originally the home of arts patrons Carroll Sterling Masterson and Harris Masterson III, Rienzi comprises a remarkable art collection, house, and gardens. For more than 40 years, the Mastersons collected European decorative arts, paintings, furnishings, and porcelain made from the 17th to mid-19th centuries.

Designed by prominent Houston architect John Staub in 1952, the Rienzi residence was used and enjoyed by the owners, their children, grandchildren, and friends until 1997, when Rienzi was given to the MFAH. Rienzi’s gardens, designed in the 1950s by noted landscape architect Ralph Ellis Gunn, are an accomplished combination of formal gardens and natural Texas woodlands. Comprising more than four acres in the River Oaks neighborhood, the property is nestled on two sides by steep ravines leading to Buffalo Bayou.