Olana State Historic Site
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Frederic E. Church House (Olana)
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The Olana mansion
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| Location | Columbia County, New York |
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| Nearest city | Hudson |
| Coordinates | 42°13′04″N 73°49′46″W / 42.21778°N 73.82944°WCoordinates: 42°13′04″N 73°49′46″W / 42.21778°N 73.82944°W |
| Area | 250.2 acres (101.3 ha) |
| Built | 1872 |
| Architect | Calvert Vaux |
| Architectural style | Persian, Victorian |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000509 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | June 22, 1965 |
Olana State Historic Site was the home of Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. The centerpiece of Olana is an eclectic villa composed of many styles, difficult to categorize, which overlooks parkland and a working farm designed by the artist. The residence has a wide view of the Hudson River valley, the Catskill Mountains and the Taconic Range. Church and his wife Isabel (1836–1899) named their estate after a fortress-treasure house in ancient Greater Persia (modern-day Armenia), which also overlooked a river valley.
Olana is one of the few intact artists' home-, studio- and estate-complexes in the United States; it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. It is owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and is also supported by The Olana Partnership, a non-profit 501(c) organization. The main building is an architectural masterpiece designed by the architect Calvert Vaux working closely with Church. The stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa is a mixture of Victorian, Persian and Moorish styles. The interior remains much as it was during Church's lifetime, exotically furnished and decorated with objects from his global travels, and with some 40 paintings by Church and his friends. The house is intricately stenciled inside and out; Church designed the stencils based on his travels in the Middle East. The house contains Church's last studios, built as an addition from 1888 to 1890.
In 1845, Frederic Church first sketched on the property that was to become Olana. He was then a student of Thomas Cole, now considered a founding figure of the Hudson River School of painters. On March 31, 1860, a few months before his marriage to Isabel Carnes, Church returned to purchase a 126-acre (51 ha) hardscrabble farm on a south-facing slope of a hill in Columbia County, near the thriving towns of Hudson and Catskill, New York. The first element he added to the property was a small country cottage, believed to have been designed by Richard Morris Hunt. In addition, Church laid out gardens and orchards, dredged a marsh to create a 10-acre (4.0 ha) lake, planted trees, and built a studio. Frederic and Isabel Church called their house "Cosy Cottage" and their property "the Farm".
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