During the early 1890s, American impressionist artists John H. Twachtman and J. Alden Weir began teaching summer art classes in Cos Cob to students of New York's Art Students League. Edward and Josephine Holley ran the Bush-Holley House, then known simply as the Old House or the Holley House, as a boarding house for artists and writers attracted to the picturesque village. The colonial architecture of the Holley House, built in 1730, appealed to many boarders, who often made it a subject of their work. Cos Cob offered easy train access from New York City, recreation, and many suitable painting subjects, especially older warehouse and residential buildings and the waterfront. Along with Twachtman and Weir, the colony attracted artists Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, Charles Ebert, and Elmer Livingston MacRae, who married the Holleys' daughter, as well as writers Willa Cather, Viola Roseboro, and Lincoln Steffans. Between 1890 and 1920, more than 200 artists and writers shared the camaraderie of this Connecticut art colony.
