Upstate House

Mural Support: A Pastoral Interior Overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir

By Joan Vos MacDonald  |  Photos by Francois Gagne  |  Summer 2025   |  Design Feature

Perched on a wooded hillside in Woodstock, a four-story Adirondack-style home keeps watch over a century-old secret: it was built by the chief engineer of the Ashokan Reservoir, who chose the site not for its seclusion but for its sweeping view of the colossal public works project unfurling below. Back then, the vast reservoir—destined to quench the thirst of millions of New Yorkers—was still a muddy wound in the landscape. Today, a century of forest growth has swallowed most of the view. Most, but not all. One slender tower still peeks above the tree line, holding on to that original line of sight.

“At the time, you could see the reservoir from the top of the house,” says interior designer Greg Feller, who also co-owns Hudson Home. “Now there’s just a little tower in the back of the house where you can see the reservoir.”

To restore some of those reservoir views Feller did not need to eliminate any trees. Instead he commissioned a one-of-a-kind mural that brings both the pastoral landscape and the reservoir’s distinctive structures inside the home for year-round viewing.

The homeowner, a well-known author, had lived in the home for 30 years and, when she considered updating its interiors, she consulted Feller and his business partner/husband, Richard Bodin. Bodin describes the home as “the kind of house you would have loved to live in as a kid.”

It’s perfect for hide and seek. “Because there’s a front stair and a back stair,” says Bodin. “There’s actually three sets of staircases.”

What the house did not have, however, is a foyer, and solving that design quandary ultimately led to creating its sylvan mural. In true Adirondack style, the home features an extensive wraparound porch, but the front door opens directly into a long narrow living room. To best organize the space, Feller placed an entry table at the center, separating the living space into two seating areas, rather than the single seating area that previously existed. “I wanted to create a sense of entry when you walked in,” says Feller.

The Walls Come to Life

The home’s refresh involved restoring favorite pieces of furniture, including pieces that belonged to the owner’s grandmother, but also adding some lighter-hued custom upholstered furnishings. The owner’s heirloom objects were ensconced in antique glass Italian curio cases. Texture was added with pottery, wicker pieces and small sculptures, but Feller felt the room really needed brightening.

“The room was very dark,” says Feller. “It had a dark wood ceiling, a dark wood floor, a stone fireplace, and dark wood trim on the wall. I wanted something to really brighten the room as much as possible. I explored other things, wall coverings, and it came to me: Why am I not paying attention to the surroundings and the nature and what’s important about the house?”

After thinking about the site, he proposed the idea of commissioning a mural. “The house is nestled in the woods,” says Feller. “The client has a strong affinity for nature and animals. I wanted to pay tribute to its location and its history by focusing on the reservoir, which is why we came up with this design for celebrating the reservoir on the walls of the living space.”

To create the mural Hudson Home collaborated with Hudson Valley artist Richard Prouse, whose resume includes supplying decorative and scenic art for industrial and residential clientele, as well as painting scenery for Broadway plays. Prouse previously designed an installation for the garden that fronts the Hudson Home store, which Feller described as a “magical winter ice fantasy.”

Mobile Mural

The mural project began with the team asking the homeowner to share her favorite reservoir views, then Prouse set out to sketch some local flora and fauna. He even created a diorama to show the team how the mural might work. The mural surrounds the living room with romantic vistas of tree branches, flowing seamlessly over and softening the room’s corners. The muted green, blue, and wheaten landscape defines the room and at the same time visually knocks down the walls, making the living room feel like it’s actually set outside.

An existing pebbled stone fireplace was deftly incorporated into the mural landscape. “We played off that focal point and created a trompe l’oeil effect with the walls adjacent to the fireplace so that it looked like the fireplace kept going into the mural,” says Feller.

The front door stands in the middle of the mural, as if inviting visitors to step outside and into the world depicted on the walls. A light switch was placed over the mural’s recreation of the reservoir pump house, looking unobtrusively like a structure door. The pastoral landscape includes depictions of bridges, smooth expanses of water, and even some waterfalls. There’s also a host of wildlife.

“Initially, animals were not going to be as prominent in the murals, but the client showed an interest in that,” says Bodin.

As a result, the painted woods are home to deer, a fox, an owl, a cardinal, and a heron. A painted squirrel seems poised to leap off the fireplace. One common misconception about murals is that they are always painted directly on walls. In this case, Prouse painted his scenery on canvas and applied the canvas to the walls. A canvas application means that if the homeowner ever moves, she can take the mural with her.

Feller explains the artist’s process: “He does all of his sketches on paper and then the paper gets laid down onto the canvas and he has a wheel that has scoring teeth on it,” says Feller. “He traces all the outlines and it makes perforations in the paper. Then he has a sack thats filled with charcoal dust that he tamps onto his pattern and that transfers the pattern onto the canvas. Then he takes the paper away and he does his painting. The process that he uses is the same process that was used when they created the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.”

The mural’s natural hues resonate throughout. “The client gave us some direction in colors that she was attracted to,” says Feller. “And I intentionally wanted to use colors that were lighter and that would complement the dark wood tones in the room.”

The room’s lighter pieces include a powder blue velvet chair and a couch covered in a muted plaid, pale wood cabinets, and delicately hued rugs. The leopard print of a stool playfully mimics the circular shapes of the pebbled stone fireplace, while white chairs with a navy leaf print reflect the room’s rustic theme. A star-shaped light fixture provides light from above.

The home’s new look is light, airy, and yet artfully textured, with a similar feel to the contents of the design firm’s store in Hudson, a lofty sun-filled space offering custom-upholstered furniture, distinctive finds and vintage pieces. The duo opened the Hudson store more than a decade ago to have a retail location, serves as a base for their interior design business, and as a source for other interior designers.

What Feller likes most about the home’s reservoir mural is the way it expands the room, both visually and in a viewer’s imagination.

“The room is long and narrow,” he says. “To me, this just takes your eye and continues out and creates a horizon line in the distance. And yeah, I think it’s lovely.”

It’s a room with more than one kind of view. The windows frame natural views in all their seasonal variations and the walls provide a panorama of the waterworks and woods, softly green in all seasons.

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