Voices of Preservation: The Hilltop House
The Hilltop House at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. Photo credit: Sarah Tietje-Mietz
The Hilltop House is the midcentury home created by Dorothy Riester and her husband Robert "Bob" Riester, located in the countryside of Cazenovia in Madison County, New York. Dorothy Riester (1916-2017) was a multi-faceted woman — an accomplished artist, educator, author, and preservationist — who pushed the boundaries of every passion she pursued. The home was built in stages between the late 1950s and the early 1970s by local contractors and outfitted on the interior entirely by Riester and her husband, Bob.
A portrait of Dorothy and Robert “Bob” Riester. Photo courtesy of the Riester Collection and Archive.
During a regular summer season at the Dorothy Riester Home and Studio (Hilltop House) at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park (Art Park), the Hilltop House is made available to the public for scheduled tours. But, as well all know, this has not been a regular season for anyone. Due to the pandemic, many of the ways our organization engages with visitors have shifted, and the decision was made to postpone tours of the home until next year. This has been particularly sad for me, as leading these tours and sharing the story of the home and its founders with our guests is a role I relish.
What I appreciate most about the Hilltop House it that Riester created a space that defies expectations. The use of readily available and affordable construction materials is offset by the playfully geometric architecture and inventive interplay of angles, colors, textures, and light, making the interior of the home vibrate with energy. The home is a constant conversation between architecture and environment emphasized with insightful design and hand-crafted elements. Sited at the border of a wooded grove and hilltop fields, Riester incorporated an extensive use of glass into the home’s design, inviting the outside to be as much a part of the home’s aesthetic as the artistically crafted interior.
Dorothy Riester embedded a variety of natural and man-made elements into this sculptural wall panel.
Entering the home happens through an enclosed glass entryway, designed by Riester in the early 1970s after a trip to Japan. This addition links the garage to the original portion of the home and was built to include an existing stand of white birch and ivy, though only the ivy remains. In her self-published book, Art and the Land: a narrative history of Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Reister described the space as, “alight and alive.”
The kitchen nook is filled with hand-crafted elements by Dorothy Riester. Photo credit: Revette studio
A cubbyhole of a kitchen is just to the left after entering the home, and though small it is rich in detail. Multicolored tiles adorning the walls and counter, a welded metal range hood, and hanging ceramic pendant lamps handmade by Riester showcase her ability to merge craft, sculpture, and design in her residential environment.
The living room, with built-in fireplace, is a lively mixture of colors, textures and materials. Photo credit: Revette Studio
In the living room, a jigsaw pattern of stone flooring mixes with the warmth of reclaimed barnwood and the coolness white sandcast walls. Exposed I-beams, painted in purple, compete for primary focus with avocado-colored banquet seating and orange and light blue walls and cabinets. The scene-stealer of this room is the fireplace which undulates out from the sandcast wall, the form evoking echoes of the adobe fireplaces of the Southwest.
The floating staircase, installed by Bob Riester, is a visually striking design element of the home. Photo credit: Revette Studio
Rounding the corner in the living room, a delicate floating staircase leads to the upstairs living quarters. The decision to install this style of staircase — light and airy — makes perfect sense for the small space. An enclosed stair would ruin the passage of light through the space, the openness of this stair almost disappears when glimpsed at certain angles.
Riester’s innovation and creativeness are inherent in the walls of the home. A portal between the bathroom and hallway is constructed of fiberglass and wood, glowing in ambers and yellows when the bathroom light is on, like a modernist take on a stained-glass window. In the bathroom, glazed tiles made by Riester line the sink and the shower stall. Just beyond the bathroom, an entire wall of the next room is faced with a sandcast installation imbued with bits of shell, bone, wood, glass, metal, and foliage.
Originally, the home was meant to be a seasonal retreat, but when the Riester’s were able to expand their property to accommodate access in the winter months, they decided to expand their living space. The result of this expansion is the Library wing, a hexagonal space with a band of clerestory windows and sliding glass doors that look out into the woods beyond. To connect this addition to the original portion of the home, Riester designed a glass-enclosed hyphen, filled with plants, a small pond, and a ceramic fountain.
The library wing overlooks the forest grove just beyond. Photo credit: Revette Studio
Though tours have been put on hold due to COVID-19, the home’s architecture facilitates public engagement even during these times of social distancing. The home’s large spans of glass and welcoming patios are ideal visual access points for visitors to peek into the home. One room, which until recently housed an installation of objects from the Riester Collection and Archive by artist Kiki Sciullo, presented itself as the perfect vitrine to display large items. This led to the idea for the exhibition Collecting Comfort; the Furniture of Dorothy and Bob Riester. The Riesters had a keen eye for fun and functional pieces by renowned mid-century designers like Arne Jacobsen, Eero Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia. Starting in July, this space housed a rotating exhibition of items from the furniture collection. Visitors can view the items through the windows of the home. By putting on a pedestal the domestic furnishings of the Riesters, our goal is to elevate these items from their domestic context and showcase them as the fine works of art and design they are.
The “Bird” chair and ottoman by Harry Bertoia on display as part of the Collecting Comfort exhibition. Photo credit: Sarah Tietje-Mietz
Sarah Tietje-Mietz is the Director of the Dorothy Riester Home and Studio (Hilltop House) at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park (Art Park). Her background is in Historic Preservation and Fine Arts, and she recently completed a Master’s degree in Arts Journalism at the Newhouse School at SU. This year, Tietje-Mietz was a recipient of the League’s Zabar Family Scholarship, and the Newhouse School’s Graduate School Master's Prize. For her, buildings embody the stories of places, of people, of communities and they reveal to us our past while being valuable and relevant assets for our future. She loves mid-century architecture and design, so finds herself especially lucky to be employed at a site that celebrates this era.