Cedar Grove celebrates Cole's work

Cedar Grove, the home of Hudson River School founder Thomas Cole and a national historic site in Catskill, opened in 2001 after the Greene County Historical Society bought the house from the floundering Thomas Cole Foundation.

An ongoing restoration costing several hundred thousand dollars has repaired most of the decay wrought by three decades of neglect.

Set high on a hill overlooking the Catskill mountains Cole celebrated in his paintings, Cedar Grove now looks much as it did in the artist's time.

The 1815 house was where Cole married his wife, Maria Barstow, where their five children were born and where Cole made some of his best-known work, including the allegorical series of five paintings ''The Course of the Empire.''

Guided tours lead visitors through the house today, which includes period furnishings and a few of Cole's personal belongings and paintings, as well as original works by Cole contemporaries Charles Herbert Moore and Benjamin B.G. Stone.