Olana was the eclectic home of Frederic Edwin Church and his wife Isabel. Frederic was one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. The mansion was designed by Mr. Church in conjunction with architect Calvert Vaux and built between 1870 and 1872. A studio wing was added in 1889.

The home of Thomas Cole, Cedar Grove, is located in Upstate New Yorkvillage of Catskill. Cole was an English painter, known for his landscape paintings. He first arrived here in 1825 on a sketching trip.

Norwalk native LeGrand Lockwood, New York financier, railroad magnate, and Treasurer of the New York Stock Exchange purchased 35 acres in Norwalk, Connecticut to build his country estate. French-trained architect Detlef Lienau was commissioned to design a technologically advanced 62-room mansion with indoor plumbing, running hot and cold water, burglar alarm system and heat and ventilation controls.

In “The Great Gatsby”, F. Scott Fitzgerald described this area as “a valley of ashes”. It would later be transformed into the 1,200-acre site where the world would converge in 1939, to witness highlights that included exhibitions by companies like General Electric, IBM, RCA, Borden, American Tobacco and Coca Cola.