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D ateline Hunt Slonem. The Metropolitan-, W h i t n e y - , a n d Guggenheim-collected artist is more than a prodigious painter of flora and fauna and a portraitist of historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Queen Elizabeth. He may also be America's foremost Preservationist Hunt Slonem unpacks all three for Houston Appearance. By Catherine D. Anspon. Photography John Neitzel. Personage Painter preservationist, given the number of challenging restorations/transformations he's undertaken. After divesting himself of the Albania and Woolworth mansions and shepherding both on to new homeowners, the artist's current portfolio of palatial residences numbers six, in addition to his expansive NYC studio, also home to a collection of tropical birds. We're smitten with his Searles Castle in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a 48-room, seven-story, turreted baronial estate by Stanford White, dating 1885-1888, which later housed Deerfield Academy. What started Slonem on the house hunt was Cordts Mansion in Kingston, New York, acquired in 2001. A stately 1873 Second Empire brick edifice flourished with mansard roof, tower, balustrades, and cornices, it's one of the grandest homes in that part of the Hudson Valley. In the Catskills, the 35,000-square-foot Georgian Revival Belle Terre in South Kortright, New York, built in 1906 by copper tycoon James McLean as a fox-hunting retreat, boasts a 2,500-square-foot entrance hall with classical molding and original plasterwork. Above: The artist's bunnies in a bright yellow "Hutch" wallpaper for Lee Jofa enliven a bedroom at Hunt Slonem's restored Belle Terre, South Kortright, New York. Left: An Old Paris porcelain vase dialogues with the artist's Cattleyas in the sitting room at Searles Castle, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. ALL IMAGES COURTESY THE SPIRITED HOMES OF HUNT SLONEM BY BRIAN D. COLEMAN, GIBBS SMITH, 2023 (Continued) 40