Olana: Home of Frederic Edwin Church

In this installment of ‘Larger Than Life: Architecture Through the Ages,’ we visit the studio of an artist of the Hudson River School.

Olana covers native woodlands, lush fields, and more than five miles of carriage roads, with a backdrop of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains. The main house atop a steep ridge has towers that dominate the skyline. Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

Olana, the home of famed American painter Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), overlooks a lush 250-acre landscape along the Hudson River in Greenport, located in upstate New York. Church, an affluent 19th-century artist associated with the Hudson River School of landscape painters, designed the home, which also served as his studio.

The Olana State Historic Site preserves the main house and its content; other buildings on the property, including a small historic cottage; and the surrounding fields and woodlands.

The design of the main house, first built between 1870 and 1872, mixes elements of Victorian architecture and Middle Eastern decorative motifs. The home, which has numerous idiosyncratic features including towers, varied roof pitches, distinct patterns of colored bricks, Chinese tiles forming a balustrade railing, has been labeled architecturally as everything from “Persian Moorish Eclectic” to “Italianate Eastern Picturesque.” Much of Church’s inspiration in designing Olana was motivated by an 18-month tour of Europe and the Middle East that he took with his wife, Isabel.

To realize his vision, Church sought the expertise of Calvert Vaux (1824–1895), an English American architect and landscape designer best known as a co-designer with Frederick Law Olmsted of New York City’s Central Park.

On the exterior are noticeable Middle Eastern motifs and stenciling, a dominant technique also used throughout the interior. The varied polychromy—use of many colors—is achieved with colored bricks, ceramic tiles, stones, and slates, in addition to wood and iron painted in harmonizing hues. Moorish-style pointed arch windows as well as spires, towers, and balconies grace many sides of the house. Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

The south façade of the main house exhibits asymmetrical towers, glassless windows, and cornices. While many structures reserve elaborate adornments for the interior, Olana sports a profusion of detailed and artistic Middle Eastern motifs carried out on colored brick, slate, and ceramic tile on its façade. Red and white striped awnings provide shade over windows. Public Domain

The Court Hall consists of two sections: the main room and the stair hall. A broad, pointed, stenciled Moorish-style arch supported by pilasters on massive pillars. The interior arch mirrors the main window, which features patterns in the tinted window.  The atrium-style architecture of this centerpiece room is complemented by the elaborate European and Middle Eastern furniture and art collection. Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

The Dining Room served as a place to take meals but also as an art gallery space to showcase a collection of European Old Master paintings. Deep-stacked ceiling moldings below the tray ceiling, an inlaid floor, and a stenciled baseboard set off an elaborately crafted piano and an oblong dining table with rattan-backed chairs. Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

As with most rooms at Olana, the Sitting Room serves as a showcase space for art and antiques. Church designed this room's inlaid wood fireplace mantle above carved red Tennessee marble. It's replete with stenciling and painted in metallics and pastels. In fact, Church designed many of the stencil patterns for the interior and exterior stenciling. Over the fireplace is Church’s 1874 painting “El Khasne,” which depicts a historic site in present-day Jordan. Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

Church’s studio, one of the largest rooms in the house, has a similar pointed arch to the one in the Court Hall. A latticed, Middle East-inspired shade defines the double-height window that provided ideal northern light for Church to paint. The decorative focal point in the room is the elaborately carved teakwood mantel fireplace decorated with hand-painted tiles, depicting a scene referred to as “reclining woman and man in European costume.” Courtesy of Peter Aaron Photographer

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