Olana is the Persian-style home of fames Hudson River School painter, Frederic Church.

Scroll to the bottom of this page to see 360 views of the Vestibule, the Great Hall, the Dining Room, and the Sitting Room.

History of the House
When Frederic Church purchased the property for Olana in 1860, he hired architect Richard Morris Hunt (who was later to build several of the “cottages” in Newport, R.I.) to design a small house in which he could raise a family. Called “Cosy Cottage", the house was occupied in the early summer of 1861. Soon Church and his wife had two children filling Cosy Cottage, but, tragically, both children died of diphtheria in 1865.

In 1867 Church purchased an additional 18 acres at the top of the hill overlooking his property. Before building his new house, he and Isabel and their infant son Frederic Joseph left for an extended tour of Europe and the Middle East.

Frederic and Isabel Church, impressed by the architecture they saw in cities like Beirut, Jerusalem and Damascus, envisioned a home at Olana that incorporated Middle Eastern elements and designs. Drawings by Richard Morris Hunt document that Church considerd using him as an architect, but ultimately decided on Calvert Vaux. Church spent the next two years working with Vaux designing and building a home that would be, as he called it “Persian, adapted to the Occident”

In the fall of 1872, Church and Isabel and their growing family of children moved into the second story of the new house while Church continued to decorate the ground floor. He designed stencils and chose the colors with which to decorate the walls and ceilings. Eclectic furnishings soon filled the house, gathered from NYC and abroad, and eventually, from the Church family home in Hartford, Connecticut. Frederic even designed a few pieces of furniture. The couple filled the house with thousands of objects meant to direct the attention to the great civilizations of the past.

Church continued to work on the house for much of the rest of his life. In 1885 he began a campaign to repair and improve the house, and in 1888, began the studio wing, with guest rooms and a glassed- in observation room in the tower. By 1891, the house was essentially complete, looking much as it does today.

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