Church is in the middle of an impressive story. He was considered a great talent by some even before he turned 21. Soon he established a reputation for his work in recreating natural scenes in a larger-than-life way. He'd do several sketches of a small area, and combine them into one great work. For example, his work, "Niagara" checked in at 40 inches by 90 inches - a huge piece of work. I believe it was Mark Twain said that the only thing it was missing was the roar of the Falls.
Church, who came from a wealthy family, started to expand his travel list to countries far away, and he always brought some painting tools with him. Then he'd bring his "sketches" home and complete more massive works. Church-mania reached the point where he could charge people to walk by and take a look, and those dimes added up rather quickly.
From there, Church decided to set up a home estate in the Hudson Valley. That's fitting for someone who is a big part of the so-called Hudson River School of landscape painters. He found a piece of farmland outside of Hudson (it supposedly is located in Greenport technically, although most just call it Hudson), and slowly converted the land into an estate worth preserving. Thousands of trees were planted on the property, and a house (shown here) was constructed on top of a hill that overlooked the mighty Hudson River to the West. It's a good view to this day.
There was talk of knocking down some buildings and deconstructing the area in 1964. But cooler heads prevailed, and the state stepped in to help preserve it all. (Thank you, Nelson Rockefeller.) Now the area serves a variety of purposes. The main house is quite well preserved; tours are available. You can hike the grounds yourself or get a ride on an electric cart to take it all in. Some new construction is going on at the site down the road from the house. It looks like parking can be cramped at certain times of the day, so keep that in mind.
One photo doesn't exactly get the point across for this place, which is quite well done. Let's take the tour:
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