Olana State Historic Site

Olana State Historic Site • Hudson River artist Frederick Church's Moorish mansion. Mansion tours, scenic walks. • Route 9G, Hudson. • Phone: (518) 828-0135 • Hours: Open April through October Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. • Museum Shop: Opens at 9:30 a.m. • Grounds open 8 a.m. to dusk. Call for more information. Wear comfortable walking shoes. Related story • Church’s art takes form as Persian villa

It's as if he's just not home yet.

It's as if you're a guest simply waiting for his return.

Standing inside the East Parlor of Frederic Church's elegant estate Olana, in Columbia County south of Hudson, it almost feels as though it's 130 years ago and the artist will fly into the room any moment now, making excuses for his delay:

"First, I'm building a house and am principally my own architect,'' Church once told his friend, artist A.C. Goodman. "I give directions all day and draw plans and working drawings all night.

"Second, I have my studio affairs outside and inside to attend to. Third, I have a large farm to keep an eye on. Fourth, I have my family to take care of. Fifth, I have been away on business three or four times ... and, sixth, an infant daughter aged 4 days has engrossed a good deal of my time.''

So how did the renowned mid-Hudson landscape painter ... world traveler, father of six ... find time to design and to so elaborately decorate his house on a hill overlooking the Catskills?

Talent.

Energy.

Hudson River artist Frederick Church's elegant estate.

A comfortable blend of life and work.

For the past 25 years, visitors to this historic site have felt the life force left behind by Frederic Edwin Church, one of the celebrated Hudson River school landscape painters.

Adapting the European love of nature, the Hudson River school painters ... who worked from about 1825 to 1875 ... were attracted by the grandeur of places like the Catskills, the Hudson Valley and Niagara Falls. Besides Church, others who caught the land on canvas included Thomas Doughty, Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, J.F. Kensett, S.F.B. Morse, Henry Inman and Jasper Cropsey.

Church was particularly influenced by Cole, his teacher, whose home is across the river. But it is Olana that serves not only as a museum for Church's paintings but also as a testimony of his devotion to the art world and to his wife and children.

"It's so beautiful. Look at that chest with the ivory,'' says Hattie Scroer, 73, to her friend, Arlene Jordan. "How'd you like to live in a house like this?

Jordan smiles. No need to answer.

The two women, tourists from Newington, Conn., are with a group of about a dozen people oohing and aahing their way through the mansion. The walls of every room are covered with paintings by Church and other artists. There are wood carved fireplaces, fine sculptures and intricate artworks acquired by Church during his trips to places like South America, Persia and Mexico.

Even the outside of the home is a masterpiece ... a Moorish structure with bell towers, balconies, arched windows and a colonnade. High on a hill, its "ombra'' ... or shaded porch ... gives a breathtaking view of the Hudson Valley, the river and the mountains beyond.

About 25,000 people a year stand on Olana's porch and see that view.

"We get all kinds of tourists,'' says Robin Eckerle, who heads education services for the museum.

"There are people very interested in the Hudson River School painters. There are people interested in architecture. And there are others who drive across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge and say they always wondered what was over here.''

When you plan a trip to Olana, says Eckerle, plan to spend the day. And come early if you want to tour the mansion. There are tours every 20 minutes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but groups are limited to about 12 and so by afternoon tickets may be sold out.

"Come early in the day and buy a ticket for later,'' Eckerle suggests. "Go into the Hudson Valley. Have a picnic. Go for a walk.''

There are seven miles of carriage roads on the estate, she says. "The grounds are often used by people who just want to walk or jog.''

A forest of oak trees, chestnuts, maples and birches cover the hill below the house and dense hemlocks tunnel many of the narrow trails. When visitors stroll the grounds, they see almost the same sights the Church family saw living there in the 19th century.

"Mr. Church studied botany,'' explains guide Wendy Kenneali. "He planted trees here for 20 to 30 years. There were cow pastures and corn lots.

"He planted forests of hemlocks.''

Church loved Olana, she says. He lived in it as his home and he painted it as his work.

Frederic Church's wife, Isabell, died in 1899. Church died a year later. His son Louis inherited the Olana and Louis' wife, Sally Good, kept the estate exactly as it was as a tribute to her father-in-law.

But it was almost lost.

Kenneali tells her tour group that the state of New York answered a plea from desperate art historians and purchased a soon-to-be-auctioned Olana after Sally Good's death in 1964.

"You know,'' says Hattie Scroer, her eyes still taking in exotic sights. "I said to my friend, our relatives were named Good, so maybe we could have inherited this place.''

Then she grins and sort of shrugs.

"Of course, our relatives were from Switzerland,'' she says.