Landscape Information
Encompassing 500 acres of rolling hills, fields, and forested terrain, this outdoor museum presents large-scale sculptures and site-specific commissions by leading modern and contemporary artists. Situated between the New York State Thruway and Moodna Creek, the property grew from a 200-acre parcel: the Vermont Hatch estate, acquired in 1959 by the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation and donated to the Storm King Art Center. In 1960 the organization engaged landscape architect William A. Rutherford, Sr., to rehabilitate the property, damaged by a gravel quarry in the 1950s.
Rutherford collaborated with Storm King’s founders, Ogden and H. Peter Stern to transform the site. Over four decades Rutherford extensively graded and sculpted the grounds to harmonize with the surrounding mountainous terrain. He created rolling grassy meadows—edged by groves of canopy trees and wooded lots—that frame borrowed views of and provide settings for sculpture by such artists as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, Henry Moore, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, and Richard Serra, and David Smith.
From 1968 to 1972 Ogden established a linear maple allée south of Hatch’s former residence (Maxwell Kimball, 1935) and two years later Rutherford prepared a master plan. In the 1990s he collaborated with landscape architect Darrel Morrison to transform a 100-acre section into a native grassland.
In 2015, twelve years after Rutherford’s death, landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand rehabilitated the property’s allées. The firm also designed a parking area (2025) along the site’s western edge, removing vehicles from the core.
Several artworks respond to the landscape, including sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy and a monumental earthwork by Maya Lin. Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall (1997–1998) wends between existing trees, appearing to extend through a pond. Lin’s undulating Strom King Wavefield (2009) evokes the surroundings and responds to the site’s industrial past.
Storm King Art Center is located within the Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area.
