For the last years of his life, Jasper Cropsey, the 19th-century Hudson River School painter, worked from his studio in Hastings-on-Hudson overlooking the Hudson River and a deep, adjoining gorge. Early in the 20th century, the gorge became an industrial site and, subsequently, the garage and parking area for the Village’s Department of Public Works.  In the 1990s, the Newington-Cropsey Foundation purchased the eight-acre gorge from the Village to construct a new Art Center. The plan for this complicated site was developed over a three-year period.  

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The plan called for a studio/gallery, a caretaker’s cottage, and a museum, creating an oasis within the urban fabric of this River town.  The stream and pond were enhanced and the wooded slopes were preserved. Two of the three new buildings were constructed at the bottom of the gorge in an informal, romantic landscape featuring the restored pond and an open lawn. An amphitheater used for outdoor performances is discreetly terraced into the north slope looking out over the gorge.