The Castle at Garrison is commutable from Manhattan. An hour by the regularly scheduled train service from Garrison. The Castle is close to the city's business opportunities, as well as its cultural attractions. But the Garrison, Cold Spring, Beacon area has lately become a destination in its own right. Mills, factories and storefronts that lay dormant for decades have been transformed into the homes, work and display spaces of painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers and actors.

     Although afficianados of "classical" American art have long associated the area with Frederic Church's Moorish mansion Olana and Thomas Cole's Cedar Grove estate, in the last two decades the energies of places like the DIA Center for the Arts, Garrison Art Center, The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill and the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival -- founded in Garrison and traditionally hosted by the long famous Boscobel Restoration -- have made contemporary art a driving force in the area.