"The Three Red Houses"

Bayview Avenue has a short run of houses that lie atop a hill directly above the road leading to Beacon's train station. The street is aptly named, for its views looking west (toward the Hudson)  are the equal of any in Beacon. Oddly enough, with all the great surrounding scenery Beacon's waterfront has to offer, a noted artist's creative attention once was drawn to Bayview Avenue and the three houses peering over its crest ...

The artist was Adolf Dehn, one of the leading lithographers of his day, who in the 1930s, turned his talents to the painting of watercolors of the American landscape. He had come to Beacon from his home in Cornwall, New York, to paint scenes of the Hudson, the railroad, and the Highlands, when the houses on Bayview caught his eye. His resulting work was titled, "The Three Red Houses," painted sometime in the late 1930s. This painting, along with a series of his other American landscapes, appeared in article in "Life Magazine," the August 11, 1941 issue.

About the painting The Three Red Houses, Dehn wrote in Life: I made the sketch for this while working on the picture "Tracks Along the Hudson." It was so cold, I went down to the ferry and rode back and forth just to get warm. On the other side [Newburgh side of the river] I saw three houses [in Beacon]. I got terribly excited and had to do something quick. I stood in the mud and sketched, then finished the job at home."

The Three Red Houses--#s 15, 17, and 19 Bayview Avenue--are no longer painted the color red but still are plainly visible as you walk along the road to Dia. Look up and see what Adolf Dehn once saw and was enthralled by.