If you've never walked into an interior which caused your jaw to drop then you haven't witnessed the overwhelming effect a built environment can have. There are few of these places extant and even fewer here in the United States. I'm lucky to live just a few miles from one - the hilltop home of the Hudson River School painter Frederic Church, Olana. Perched on a mountaintop overlooking the Hudson River, it's sited facing southwest to take in the views of the Catskill Mountains to the west and the winding path of the river down towards NYC. Olana is a sight to behold. Church was the most famous painter in America in the late 19th century. His massive paintings of the natural world wooed critics and the masses alike. Olana was his masterpiece. 250 acres of woodlands, lakes and carriage roads with a house unlike any built before. Its design was wrested from his imagination after trips to the Middle East. Exotic doesn't even begin to describe it. Its architecture and interior colors are unique. You've never seen a home as colorful as this. It shouldn't work, yet it does. Until you get the opportunity to visit Olana listen in. It's the next best thing.

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