About that stone wall...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 1:43PM | Executive Director 
By far the most visible part of our sprawling landscape restoration is the stone wall and picket fence that is currently being installed along Spring Street. In this photo, the wall is about 75% of its final height, and the picket fence has been added to one side of an opening for a pedestrian entrance. The wall and fence are going to be beautiful additions to the site, and the best thing about them is that they are exact replicas of what was there in Thomas Cole's time. There is a detailed pencil sketch by the artist Frederic Church that was done just a few months after Cole died in 1848 (see below), giving us a highly skilled, first-hand account of what was there. In addition, we conducted archaeological digs to locate the original wall, and we are able to reuse a great deal of stone that we found still buried there. The final work will include large brick piers to mark the main carriage entrance, wooden posts to mark pedestrian entrances, and graceful wooden gates at several points. It is now too cold to do the final painting, so the fence pieces were primed indoors and will receive their paint in the spring.
Frederic Church, Thomas Cole's Cedar Grove, 1848. Courtesy of the Olana State Historic Site
Reader Comments (1)
Wonderful work! Well done.