Olana, the famed home of Frederic Edwin Church, the nineteenth-century American landscape painter and a central figure in the Hudson River School. In the 1860s and 1870s, Church partnered with Calvert Vaux to create an eclectic house with Victorian, Persian, and Moorish influences, among others, on a commanding spot in the Hudson River Valley. (...)
Olana, the famed home of Frederic Edwin Church, the nineteenth-century American landscape painter and a central figure in the Hudson River School. In the 1860s and 1870s, Church partnered with Calvert Vaux to create an eclectic house with Victorian, Persian, and Moorish influences, among others, on a commanding spot in the Hudson River Valley. Church and Vaux also transformed the landscape to capitalize on the naturalistic effect, much in keeping with the tastes of the Hudson River School. Within the home, Church created elaborate stencil decorations that compliment the exterior. The name of the house, Olana, derives from the term for an ancient Persian fortified house. Today Olana is a museum and open to the public. The house, landscape, and furnishings remain as Church planned them.
