Photos

The porch at Olana, the home of the American painter Frederic Church, overlooking the Hudson river.

The main building at Olana is an architectural masterpiece created by Church for himself, his wife, and his four children. Church was one of the most renowned American artists of the Hudson River School of painting. The stone, brick, and polychrome-stenciled villa is a mixture of Victorian and Persian styles.

The picturesque landscape was designed and implemented over a 40-year period by Church, changing the treeless agricultural fields into an artistic landscape featuring gardens, tree-lined drives, a park and a lake.

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 in 1888–1890.

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olana