Olana, located in Greenport, NY, was the home and estate of Fredric Edwin Church and his wife Isabel. Frederic Church is considered is one of the most famous landscape painters of the mid-19th century and Olana is a rare example of an American artist’s home, studio and estate that remained intact after the artist’s death.

The home was designed by Church, assisted by architect Calvert Vaux. Construction on the home began in 1870 and was completed two years later. Church is primarily responsible for design of the grounds around Olana and work on the landscape continued until 1892. Olana was envisioned by Church as a holistic environment integrating art, architecture, nature, design and environmental conservation. Thus, his landscape design of surrounding grounds was extensive. The lake in the featured image above is artificial and was hand dug by laborers.

Church was a member of the Hudson River American Landscape painters and his work was extremely popular with collectors. One of his paintings, The Heart of the Andes, sold for the $10,000 in 1909. That’s $356,000 in today’s dollars! Church’s paintings made him extremely wealthy, which permitted him to spend lavishly on Olana.

Church traveled extensively both in the US and internationally to work on his paintings. He collected many pieces of art and furniture during his travels and his home features much of his collection.

What makes Olana so unique is that the home and its interior remained mostly unchanged from the time that Frederick and Isabel lived there. After Church’s death in 1901, the property was inherited by Frederick’s son Louis and his wife. They maintained the interior of the home and furnishings largely as they inherited it. After Louis’ wife’s death, the house was passed on to Louis’ nephew in 1964 and was nearly sold to developers were it not for the efforts led by historian David C. Huntington. New York State purchased the property in 1966 and it is now a State Historic Site.

Click on any image to enlarge

Please be aware that tickets are required for tours of Olana and parking near the house is limited. Additional Parking is available at the visitor’s center located 0.5 miles from house. There is no dedicated parking for RVs at the visitor center although there is a wide shoulder in the parking lot that could accommodate two, 24-foot long vehicles.

Eight weeks after we visited Olana, we were delighted to discover one of Church’s paintings at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas! We provide a photo below and will link to the Crystal Bridges post when it is published.

Happy Fall everyone. Thanks for following along.