Olana Partnership

Education / interpretation: The vs team implemented several new tour types in 2022, including a second floor and servants' quarters tour and a dedicated tour for our first winter exhibition, chasing icebergs. The response to The chasing icebergs tour was very positive, making up 26% of overall sales between opening weekend and The end of 2022. In 2022, 28% of visitors entering The park at Olana enjoyed a public tour. Of these, 20% participated in a landscape tour, which is a substantial improvement over 7% in prior years. This was The result of a targeted marking campaign and new talking points for our frontline visitor services staff. In 2022, top hired 12 new seasonal staff members and welcomed back 16 returning seasonal staff and volunteers. Hannah reuter also joined our team in may as visitor services manager. We are pleased to report we retained 100% of our interpretive staff throughout The season. By offering a competitive starting wage of $20/hour, top attracted highly skilled individuals from diverse backgrounds and made us a leader in supporting The regional economy. In 2022, top's education & public programs team served 11,898 people with virtual and in-person programs. These included k-12 school field trips, virtual Olana webinars, young at heart creative aging programs, panorama summer youth program, and community events. While top virtual programs and field trips continued, we were able to host larger scale onsite events with The continued easing of covid protocols. We partnered with phoenicia flea on The Olana summer market in august and held our third annual winter solstice celebration in december. These free public events brought over 4,000 people to Olana. 2022's winter solstice celebration experienced a 78% increase in attendance from 2021 and a 95% increase from our first winter solstice event in 2020. Top continued building partnerships with key regional organizations in order to reach new audiences. This included building on our work on free family programming with The sylvia center, a non-profit operating in columbia county and nyc with a mission around nutrition and social justice. Top also partnered with The hudson area library to offer Olana's first spanish-language program for families, arte y lugares especiales. This served over 250 bilingual adults and children through free art kits and an onsite program, many of whom visited Olana for The first time. Young at heart, received a special third year of funding from The em michelson foundation, which allowed for The development of two new courses focused on songwriting and fashion design. Our workforce development Partnership with columbia-greene community college expanded to include construction trades and history in 2022. We initiated a Partnership with upstate films to host an "Olana movie night" film screening in august that attracted over 225 people for a special summer evening of film, live music, and food. 2022 saw a continued growth in youth program participants and k-12 school field trips. We served 2,885 children (ages 18 and under) in family, youth, and student programs. We added a fourth week of panorama to our summer calendar. Top also worked with The hudson city school district to place six students in The program and offered four full scholarships to students receiving snap/ebt benefits. Top also continued offering field trips at no cost for columbia and greene county school districts. In 2022, we served over 800 students through field trips alone with around 70% coming from columbia, greene, dutchess, or albany counties. Overall, in 2022, top made great strides in reaching more diverse audiences on The national, state-wide, and regional levels.

Museum store: top continued to grow its staff in 2021 to expand its capacity to serve The expanded programmatic responsibilities under its cooperative agreement with nys parks and to prepare for The significant infrastructure expansion to be provided by The frederic church center. In 2022 top restructured senior staff to create The new executive position of vp of visitor engagement and business operations and change The museum shop manager position to The director of retail operations, a senior staff position, reporting to The vp. Museum store sales were very robust for The year as top resumed full visitor operations.

Collections / exhibitions: top organized artist diana wege's outdoor installation sacred site from july through october 2022, featuring twelve of wege's large-scale original paintings made after frederic church niagara falls from The american side (1867) and arranged on The mount merino overlook in Olana's historic landscape. As a central feature of top's "niagara year," sacred site facilitated conversations about both church's historic role in The preservation of niagara falls and contemporary viewshed protection issues at olana.in november, top opened its first winter season exhibition in The sharp family galleries: chasing icebergs: art and a disappearing landscape. Chasing icebergs told The story of church's 1859 journey to The coasts of newfoundland and labrador in search of icebergs as a subject and The historic and contemporary symbolism of these awesome natural forms for artists. The exhibition included more than twenty rarely-seen works from Olana's permanent collection, along with The work of four contemporary artists lynn davis, kambui olujimi, mark igloliorte, and zaria forman and through a new video commission, engaged digitally with The unparalleled collection of church's plein air iceberg oil sketches held by cooper hewitt, smithsonian design museum. In 2022 top's curatorial and archival team helped facilitate significant acquisitions for The Olana collection. These will help us to present a more complete version of Olana's historic interiors and to interpret stories ranging from frederic church's engagement with The 19th century art market, to The adult life and artwork of church's daughter isabel charlotte "downie" church, to The 20th century preservation story of Olana. Through partial purchase and partial donation, The following items were received from church descendant joan dawson macfall zeno: a c. 1884 portrait of downie by felix moscheles, an ali muhammad isfahani tile once displayed at Olana, and more than 30 of downie's botanical watercolor paintings dating from 1927-1933. Ricky lark and rickey shaum donated a 19th century scrapbook of reviews of frederic church's paintings, likely assembled by The artist himself, along with archival documents pertaining to louis and sally church's tenure at Olana and church's copy of robert wood's The ruins of palmyra (1753). Trudy huntington, widow of david huntington, donated an 1877 copy of heart of The andes by mark harrison that had hung in prof. huntington's office. Top also assisted in concluding The transfer of The papers of Olana preservation inc. from milbank llp to The archives of Olana state historic site. Finally, top worked with oprhp to improve visitor access in Olana's historic interiors through The replacement and strategic expansion of tour floor carpeting, funded through top's public access fund. Top also conducted initial consultations with four lighting firms experienced in lighting historic buildings and period rooms to improve lighting in The historic interiors.

Landscape / viewshed: The Olana Partnership engaged nelson byrd woltz landscape architects (nbw) to research and develop a design concept for The rehabilitation of The plinth, a popular viewing platform with Olana's designed historic landscape. The Olana landscape/viewshed committee convened with our consultants at nbw and select nys ophrp participants to begin this design process. Our top and oprhp group met again, this time without our consultants, and agreed that more research was needed to understand best practices and solutions in highly visited historic sites throughout The u.s. how best to balance historic preservation concerns with a realistic and sustainable (and maintainable) approach to a highly visited element within a public landscapethere have been no new threats to Olana's viewshed. On neighboring blue hill, we are still waiting for The older communications tower configuration to be removed, as required by The town of livingston. Top has been incommunication with scenic hudson to determine next best steps. This may require confirmation from The federal communications commission.mingled flower garden in late fall, this garden recovered after an extreme period of summer heat and drought, and our gardener mary hughes prepared it formwinter. Top is still seeking a committed annual supporter of this garden. Contributions to help cover 2022 garden maintenance costs were made by kanna kitamura, beth mason, and dianne young.

Capital development: after years of planning,strategizing, and behind-the scenes design work, some key projects within The Olana strategic landscape design plan took center stage and became more visible during The last quarter of 2022. A december press gathering on Olana's piazza served as The "groundbreaking" event for The frederic church center for art and landscape, highlighting some of The significant private and public funding accomplishments needed for this new facility to be constructed and completed by late spring 2024. Visitors to Olana also witnessed The first phase of Olana's historic farm restoration underway. Construction began around cosy cottage and will continue through The farm complex extending to Olana's lake for a targeted completion in late 2023. These projects are The result of a long-term commitment to Olana's 250-acre landscape, an improvement of public access while balancing The broader interpretative goals which are essential to understanding Olana as both a nationally significant historic site and a large-scale work of art.