Several residents of River Oaks sued to prevent Bayou Bend becoming a museum, but Hogg prevailed in court. To alleviate the residents' concerns over increased traffic, she asked the city of Houston to build a footbridge over Buffalo Bayou so that visitors could reach the house without having to drive through River Oaks. In the fall of 1965, Hogg moved out of her home, telling the docents that "When you love something enough it's easy to give it up in order to see it go on." The MFAH opened the new museum to the public in 1966 as MFAH's Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens. At its dedication, Charles Montgomery, a senior research fellow at the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum, called Bayou Bend "the largest, finest collection this side of Winterthur".