Olana

Olana is the castle-like structure and surrounding grounds created by Frederic Edwin Church, a major figure of the Hudson River School of American artists, five miles south of Hudson, New York.

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The interior remains much as it was during Church's lifetime, exotically furnished and decorated with objects from his extensive travels, and by paintings by Church and his friends. The house is intricately stencilled 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. Working over a 40-year period, Church designed the entire 250-acre estate to complement the picturesque landscape with its views of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains.

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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 1968.

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Hudson River School: The Hudson River school was a 19th century American group of landscape painters whose approach was related to romanticism. Their paintings depict the Hudson River Valley and the surrounding area. (School in this usage is a group of people whose thought, work, or style demonstrates a common thread, r...

Hudson, New York: Hudson is a city in Columbia County, New York. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 7,524. It is the county seat of Columbia County....

Middle East: The Middle East (also called Southwestern Asia) is a region comprising the lands that extend from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is a subregion of Africa-Eurasia, or more specifically, Asia, and sometimes North Africa and Afghanistan....