Veronica Terrillion's "Woman-Made" House and Garden - Indian River, NY
- What: Concrete Sculpture Garden, Log House and Total Personal Environment created by Veronica Terrillion [1908 - 2003], Self-taught Artist
- Where: NYS Route 812, Indian River, Lewis County
- When: 1952 - Present
- Contact: This site is private property and is only open to the public by invitation or advance arrangement. You can see exterior features from the roadside without going onto the site. Photography from the road is permissible. To arrange a more complete visit, call or email TAUNY and we will discuss it with family members
- Click here to add your own memory of Veronica Terillion's Garden to our guestbook.
If you travel the lonely stretches of Route 812 between Harrisville and Croghan, you can hardly miss this impressive three-acre sculpture garden, complete with a cedar log ranch house and a large pond with two islands. Begun as the home for Veronica Terrillion and her young family in the early 1950s, the house was designed by Veronica and built with family help. Subsequently, she used her basic self-taught techniques of construction, particularly with concrete, to create scores of figures during the next forty years of her life. Inspired by her dedication to her family, to nature and her devout Catholic beliefs, the sculpture garden includes pieces as diverse as St. Francis of Assisi and a bird tree, a life size nativity scene, Adirondack whitetail deer and black bears, and sculptures of all the members of her family. Veronica died in 2003 at the age of 95. The house is privately owned by family, but you can still see most of the sculpture from the roadside.
Additional Photos
Click photos to view full size
Overall view of Terrillion front yard, with log home built by Veronica in early 1950s in background.
Veronica Terrillion mixing cement in drained pond south of Terrillion house in mid-1980s.
Veronica Terrillion by the Route 812 roadside ditch lined with concrete animal figures.
Nativity scene and crucifix in side yard by Terrillion house.
Sculptures of Christ and Adirondack whitetail deer on island in center of Terrillion pond, with house and sculpture garden in distance.
Concrete canoe and sculptures of Terrillion family members on "woman=made" island in pond on south end of house and garden.
Caribou sculpture with genuine antlers
Veronica Terrillion with life size sculpture of zebra in Terrillion front yard.
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