Photos and other materials documenting Veronica Terrillion's "Woman-Made" House and Garden (Indian River, NY), which TAUNY recognized as a Very Special Place.

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.