Palacial and Landscape Architecture of the Hudson Valley

Kykuit is an unusually picturesquely located estate, the most significant in the Hudson Valley. Four generations of the most talented family throughout the history of the country were associated with him. It is in the area where America has achieved its main success - in entrepreneurship. The Rockefellers adequately disposed of their wealth, allocating a lot of funds for culture, charity and social assistance. Kaikit consists of a six-story palace, a huge park, a rich collection of 20th-century sculpture (including works by Picasso), a collection of antique cars and carriages. Nearby is the Rockefeller family church, with the largest number of stained glass windows by Marc Chagall in America, as well as a stained glass window - the last work of Henri Matisse.

Generally speaking, with regard to local stained-glass windows, it is so appropriate to recall a particularly expressive old poetic device - alliteration: Chagall's masterpieces, Matisse's magic, Tiffany's talent.

Stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany adorn the art gallery at Lyndhurst Palace, recognized as the best national example of the Gothic style. This building is perfectly complemented by the neo-Gothic of the nearest hotel, with its truly royal chambers. From Lyndhurst, along the ancient aqueduct, there is a remarkable trail with blooming crotons. The trail leads to Sunnyside, a 17th-century estate where later renovations have incorporated elements of Dutch, Romanesque and even Mediterranean styles. And yet this is not eclecticism, time melts not only different peoples, but also such different styles.

Washington Irving, the first European-recognized American classic, lived here. He managed to turn local legends into romantic parables about the brevity of human life, about the endless pursuit of an unattainable goal. His heroes - Rip Van Winkle, the Headless Horseman - have become iconic for Americans. And the whole area of the Sleepy Hollow, with its visible signs of a romantic past, like a time machine, plunges you into a nostalgic atmosphere of a dream of a serene virtual world, where there is not even a trace of all the madness of the present time.

In the near proximity, there are two museums of living history. The costumed guides portray the owners and workers of distant antiquity. Phillipsburg, preserved from the 17th century, is a large Dutch-style stone house with a working water mill; diagonally down the street - a temple of the same time - the Dutch church of Sleepy Hollow.

Another "living museum" is the 18th-century stone manor Van Cortland, once a very lively place, there was even a tavern. This is a turbulent time at the turn of eras - from colonial to early American. The style is transitional: from the latter, colonial-Georgian, to the former, republican-federal. The same is true of the extensive collection of local furniture.

A little further than all this splendor is another palace constellation, where the federal style is also represented - this is the Boscobel Palace. And the Montgomery Palace, based on the federal style, was reconstructed and received a classical (neoclassical) look.

Of the exotic styles, Olana's palace, of the Victorian era, in a rare cheerful-polychrome Persian style, a kind of Moorish style, looks very attractive. Generally speaking, the favorite genre of many architects is their own house, designed with their own hands. This is the last and, apparently, the best of the masterpieces of the Hudson River Art School, which is very important for the national art. The author and happy owner of Olana, Frederick Edwin Church, belongs to it.

The French “Style of Fine Arts” turned out to be extremely fruitful for America during the next artistic take-off in the history of mankind. This time in France was called "Belle Epoque" ("Beautiful Era"), in America - close to the Russian "Silver Age" - "The Gilded Age". This is how the Vanderbilt Palace in Hyde Park was built. Unique Flemish tapestries and oriental carpets are especially good there.

In the same town there are two most interesting estates - the house of the presidential couple Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the summer cottage of Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor herself was an outstanding political leader and a true humanist. This combination is much less typical for male politicians.

In addition to Olana, there is another completely fantasy building, compared with the most pronounced Middle Ages, and with the creations of Gaudí. And even further, the tour ends with a visit to an old large estate. It was reconstructed and enlarged by the inspired, extraordinarily talented architect Stanford White, a true and tragic figure in the great literature - Edgar Doctorow's Ragtime.