Frugal Friday – Wanderlusting for Solo Adventure in New York’s Hudson Valley

It’s that time of year already – the leaves are turning, the days are crisp and the nights are cool.  It’s when my daydreaming gets behind the wheel and heads north of the Big Apple to the historic Hudson River Valley.  You only have to venture about 45 miles out of Manhattan to see the reds and the yellows starting to happen and the further my car sails up the Taconic Parkway, the more the landscape fills with color.  You can easily get lost in all this beauty.

There are many historic homes to visit along the way but one of my favorite spots is Olana, the country estate of 19th century landscape artist Frederic Church.  The word Olana is Arabic for “house on high.”  Church built the Persian style Olana for his wife Isabel in 1872.  Back then the treetops were not as tall as they are today and the river views of the Hudson were far more expansive but Church so loved the area that he bought up 250 acres and added many more trees to the property.  He also built his studio in the best room in the house with a sweeping veranda along one side and a huge picture window that perfectly frames a Hudson Valley vista.

Petra - Frederic Church, 1874

As a child I loved to visit “the house down the road” because I was able to view my favorite painting.  It’s an oil that Church painted in 1874 of the lost city of Petra in Jordan.  Since I was a child this painting has drawn me in (way before the days of Indiana Jones) and to this day it remains tops on my list of favorite masterpieces.

Olana is just one of many beautiful homes in New York's historic Hudson River Valley

Olana is a living monument to a talented man and his vision of life around the world.  There are many of Church’s paintings throughout the property and his studio appears as though he just went for coffee yesterday and not as though he left 110 years ago, never to return.

Church and his family traveled through the Middle East and Europe during the 19th century.  He even had a studio in Rome (see why I like him).  So, it is no surprise, that his home reflects his travels and his collections.  There are bronzes, Persian carpets, paintings by his fellow Hudson River School artists Martin Johnson Heade and Arthur Parton, and numerous works by his close friend – sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer.  There is also the sweetest painting of a little girl of about 5 or 6 years old and no one knows the artist or the child – one of Olana’s great mysteries yet to be solved.

I cannot say enough great things about Olana.  Bring a picnic – tour the house and then be prepared to sit a spell.