9-13-15-2019: Olana and Bard College

I don’t know when Christine learned about Olana, the home of Frederick Church (1826-1900), the famous Hudson Valley School painter, but she’s been wanting to visit this place for quite a while. We did a trip in June, 2017 and got close to Olana. Hyde Park and Val Kill, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt historic sites (you can find my posts in the archives) took up so much of our time along the Hudson River that we never made it to Olana. But this year, Christine proposed a visit to Olana to our daughter Eve. We were happy to work out the details with Eve, who is back in Burlington after 4 years in London, who joined us for the weekend.

Christine and I had a wonderful drive along NY Route 23 from Oneonta to the Hudson River. Friday was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and blue skies. It was a picturesque drive through lovely rolling hills, farmland, and then into the Catskill Mountains. As we were crossing the Rip Van Winkle Bridge over the Hudson River, I spotted Olana, the Church mansion, up on the hill. We couldn’t pass up a sneak peak at the house and grounds so we drove up to the site, and I’m very glad we did because the weather on Saturday turned blustery, very overcast and storm-ish, so seeing the house, grounds and viewshed (I learned this new word) on a sunny day was really great.

Olana

Olana is one of the few intact artists’ home-, studio- and estate-complexes in the United States. The house is also a prime example of Orientalist architecture. The main building is an architectural masterpiece designed by the architect Calvert Vaux working closely with Frederick Church. We learned about Vaux in relation to New York Central Park. Vaux’s protege was William Law Olmsted and together they designed Central Park, one of our favorite places to visit. Olana is a stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa in 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 Church family lived in the house until 1964 and didn’t change much inside the house, so all the stuff Church collected was still there. 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 studio, built as an addition from 1888 to 1890.

Olana from the rear

For our sneak peak before our inside tours tomorrow, we wandered around the outside of the house. There is so much to see in terms of details!

As we walked around the property, we found a wonderful garden called the Mingled Garden. Readers of my blog know how much we like gardens. This one was charming and we strolled through it several times. As I said, it was a nice, late summer day. The bees and the butterflies were all over the blooms throughout the garden, which were still mostly colorful and in abundance.

Olana’s 250-acre naturalistic landscape is one of Frederic Church’s great works of art, and it exists today as one of the most intact artist-designed landscapes in the United States. Because it was created by a major Hudson River School painter in the birthplace of that art movement, the landscape at Olana possesses an exceptional sense of place – genius loci. Church was intimately involved in all aspects of his landscape’s creation and design. “I am busy landscape architecturing!” wrote Church in 1887. His large-scale composition included a working and ornamental farm, meadows, outbuildings, an “artificial” lake, native woodlands, and more than five miles of carriage roads, so that visitors could move through and experience Olana’s crafted foreground against a backdrop of sublime and far-reaching views. Frederic Church carefully designed Olana’s 250 acres with an artist’s eye to his property’s 360-degree “borrowed” views of neighboring hills, valleys, the Hudson River and distant mountains.  The views beyond Olana – its “viewshed” – were an essential part of Church’s original composition. And what a view it is!

Fantastic view of the Hudson and Catskills

After our sneak peak of Olana, we drove another few miles to our Airbnb and settled in. We’ve been fortunate with our Airbnb experiences and this apartment was conveniently located and well-appointed. Christine and I then drove into the tiny village of Tivoli, population of about 1,200, in search of dinner. We ate at Santa Fe, a Mexican restaurant on the main street, Broadway, which is only a couple of blocks long. After dinner we strolled around the village, which is very quaint.

Back at the Airbnb, we awaited the arrival of Eve. She rolled in shortly after our return and we had a nice reunion with her and caught up on what’s been happening. We all called it a night fairly early as we were all tired from the drive, and Eve had had a full day teaching.

Saturday morning we drove back to Olana. We had purchased tickets for a tour titled The Artist’s House: The Church Family at Home and Abroad. Our tour guide was really good and we learned a lot about the Church family, how they used the house and what they collected on their many, many trips abroad. The house was really quite overwhelming because everywhere you looked there was a whole lot of stuff, either knick knacks, art work, stenciling, books, etc. But it was really interesting to hear stories about Frederick Church and his work.

After our tour we walked down the hill to the original Church house, called Cosy Cottage. This was where it all started for Frederick and Isabel Church. The original farm was 126 acres and Church really was a farmer in addition to an artist. Church later purchased the rest of the property that now encompasses Olana and he began the planning for the “new” house at the top of the hill. We walked to the lake and found a nice picnic spot. The weather was rather nasty, very windy and overcast, and we hoped it wouldn’t rain until after lunch. In spite of the weather, we had a lovely lunch in a very scenic spot.

During the afternoon, we had tickets for a self-tour. This allowed us access to other rooms that were not seen during our morning tour and we could spend as much time as we wanted until closing looking at things. There was a docent in each room if we had questions. We were able to see a few more rooms, which we appreciated. Just as we were starting our self-tour, the heavens opened up and it poured rain for nearly an hour. This worked out perfectly for us because we were inside during the rain and by the time we were ready to leave, the rain had stopped.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include some photos of paintings by Frederick Church. He was a central figure of the Hudson River School of American landscape painters, best known for painting large landscapes, often depicting mountains, waterfalls, and sunsets. Church’s paintings put an emphasis on realistic detail, dramatic light, and panoramic views. He debuted some of his major works in single-painting exhibitions to a paying and often enthralled audience in New York City. He was able to earn a comfortable living doing these paying exhibitions. Our tour guide said that his landscapes could be considered the movies of his day. The landscapes were often very large and brought the beauty of landscapes to the people. He traveled all over the world and his paintings gave his viewers a glimpse of the world. In his prime, he was one of the most famous painters in the United States.

We really enjoyed our day at Olana, although we were all pretty exhausted and leg weary from our tours. We drove back to the Airbnb, with a quick side trip to the Clermont Historic Site. This was the home of Robert Livingstone, one of the five writers of the Declaration of Independence. His home was one of the Hudson River mansions that have been preserved.

We all had a little rest and then went to Tivoli to have dinner at The Corner Hotel restaurant. We had a nice meal and did a lot of talking. We stopped for some very good ice cream on our way back to the car. Back at the Airbnb we lounged until bedtime. It had been a wonderful day and I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the day.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed to Tivoli for a stop at a bakery and then on to breakfast at Murray’s Cafe, which is housed in a decommissioned Methodist Church. It is a lovely space since many of the stained glass windows remain. The walls are covered in artwork, which I think is a gallery space exhibiting local artists. We had a nice breakfast at Murray’s.

We then headed to Bard College. Bard is near and dear to Eve because she has attended several workshops and summer classes at Bard’s Institute for Writing and Thinking (IWT) over the past several years. The IWT offers programs that focus on the role of writing in teaching and learning. Eve has become an associate in the program and is now eligible to conduct training session at schools to explore teaching methodologies, learn from each other, and rethink how writing fosters and shapes thinking. This also enables Eve to continue attending IWT sessions at no cost, which is a real perk.

Eve gave us a tour of the campus and pointed out some of her special places. Bard, a small liberal arts college, has about 2,700 students. The campus is beautifully situated along the Hudson River with great views of the Catskills. The campus is a real mishmash of architectural styles, but what I loved most is the great old trees all over the campus. It is a very beautiful campus.

We walked all over the campus, but Eve saved two wonderful places for last. These are two of her favorites and it is easy to understand why. The first was Blithewood Manor. The 45-acre estate was significant in the Picturesque movement in architecture (1840–1880), as it was one of the earliest to emphasize the natural setting as much as, if not more than, the house. It’s a beautiful house in incredible surroundings with stunning views of the Hudson River and the Catskill mountains. But the best part is the walled Italianate garden. Although relatively small, the garden is absolutely wonderful.

Blithewood Garden

The second special spot was on the Saw Kill Creek.

Beautiful area on the Saw Kill, another of Eve’s Bard favorite spots
Falls on the Saw Kill

It was really special to have our own private tour of Bard with Eve. We appreciated her sharing Bard with us, especially the garden and the falls. As you can tell from the Bard photos, the weather had turned nice again and so our tour was in sunshine under blue skies. What a lovely morning we had.

We drove back to Tivoli, via River Road, a lovely Dutchess County route through woodlands and farmland along the Hudson, to retrieve our car and say our goodbyes. It was so great being able to share the weekend with Eve. I had a really good time, learned lots, and am looking forward to our next visit to the Hudson River Valley.

The 3 of us at Olana

2 thoughts on “9-13-15-2019: Olana and Bard College”

  1. Thank you for sharing this lovely weekend …as always you tell a good tale and the photos are superb ! Wish I could have been a fly on the baggage!
    DeenyDeLana

    1. Dear Deeny, so glad Linda blogged on our wonderful weekend. I had intended to do some Facebook posting but have not had time so far this week. I knew you would love it.

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