Frederic Church’s Olana on the Hudson

Barrymore Laurence Scherer Magazine

“Almost an hour this side of Albany is the Center of the World,” wrote Frederic Edwin Church (1826– 1900) to his friend sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer. He added: “I own it.” Church, preeminent among the Hudson River school painters, was referring to Olana, his magnificent “Persian” style mansion and the surrounding 250 mountaintop acres of landscape he subtly designed.

The Real Story of Sleepy Hollow

Editorial Staff Art

from The Magazine ANTIQUES, January/February 2012 | Washington Irving could spin a tale so well that even Charles Dickens was in his thrall. “I don’t go upstairs to bed two nights out of the seven,” the English novelist said, “without taking Washington Irving under my arm.”* Irving’s success was long in coming, but it enabled him to move to a …