Olana, the estate and landscape designed by Frederic Church?America?s foremost landscape painter of the 19th century?might be the painter?s deepest and richest creative act.
This hillside on the banks of the Hudson River in Upstate New York was a work of art that became Church?s own studio for painting the landscapes that made him a national celebrity?a mutually reinforcing circle that tied this land to his fantastical, but finely grained, depictions of it. ?I can make more and better landscapes in this way than by tampering with canvas and paint in the studio,? Church wrote of his stewardship of Olana.
As detailed in this summary of what led Church to the Hudson Valley and what kept him there, Church?s landscape accentuated the stunning beauty of one of the Hudson River Valley?s most dramatic sites. To accompany the Persian-themed house he built for his family starting in 1872, Church planted trees to frame views, added a system of carriage roads to ferry visitors from one to another, and installed a lake that echoed the shape of the river. For his house, he mixed colors he would use to paint its rooms on his own palette. A new plan for Olana by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects won a 2017 ASLA Professional Award for Analysis and Planning for its sensitive approach to encouraging greater public engagement and its deep research into the site?s soil, hydrology, land use, and topography. The jury praised the plan for allowing the estate?s essential beauty to shine thro...