FULL: Rockwell Kent: Adirondack Architect

Monday, July 20, 2026

“We want an architect who knows his job and us and life and the hereafter. God help us! We want me”, wrote Rockwell Kent of his pursuit of the perfect architect to design his home in the Adirondacks.

Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) is widely known as an American artist and social activist. Less well known is that Kent was trained as an architect and, while living at his home at Asgaard Farm near Au Sable Forks, he designed and remodeled several buildings locally. This tour will begin at the Kent Gallery at SUNY Plattsburgh where we will learn about his work as an artist, illustrator, and author. We will then travel to Asgaard Farm – most recently an active goat farm and dairy –  to experience the farm where Kent’s family resided. Lastly, we will visit a well-preserved example of Kent’s residential designs at a private home in Elizabethtown.

“And there, westward and heavenward, to the high ridge of Whiteface, northward to the northern limit of the mountains, southward to their highest peaks, was spread the full half-circle panorama of the Adirondacks. It was as if we had never seen the mountains before.”                    
—Rockwell Kent, This Is My Own

This tour is led by Anne Mackinnon, author of “A Home to Live and Breathe: The Adirondack Architecture of Rockwell Kent” (Adirondack Life), alongside AARCH Staff. The tour begins at 10 AM and ends around 3 PM.

The fee is $70 for AARCH members and $85 for non-members.

TOUR REGISTRATION INFORMATION

More information on Rockwell Kent as an architect: “Rockwell Kent: Artist, Dairyman…and Architect?!