THE MOUNT -- LENOX, MASSACHUSETTS

After visiting Kykuit, I noted that wealthy, powerful men build homes with views of expansive lawns and water. Let me modify that. Wealthy women do too. Witness Edith Wharton’s home in the Berkshires where she wrote several of her most famous novels including Ethan Frome and Age of Innocence.

The Mount, Wharton’s home for about ten years beginning in 1902 until her divorce and expatriation to France in 1913, sat on 120 acres in beautiful Lenox, Mass. Today, 49 of those acres belong to the Edith Wharton Trust, an organization dedicated to restoring Wharton’s summer “cottage” to its original splendor.

What makes a visit here so worthwhile is Wharton herself. She broke the mold of dependent Victorian women by taking a full hand in designing both the elegant house where she shunned the Gilded Age’s excess to bring a European-inspired simplicity and symmetry to the design and the elaborate gardens which she envisioned as extensions of the home’s living space. While she worked with an architect and landscaper from Boston, Wharton is recognized as the guiding spirit behind the ambitious project. Her book, The Decoration of Houses, presented Wharton’s theories of design, and it is still in print and consulted more than a century later. She was a believer in symmetry, and if you look at my photos, you will notice how strictly she held that standard—even at the entryway to her home.

Edith Wharton bought the property with money earned by writing, and she thrived as a writer in this magnificent retreat producing short stories, three works of nonfiction, and six novels including The House of Mirth. She once wrote after receiving a check for her writing, “Many thanks for the cheque for $2,191.84 which, even to the 81 cents, is welcome to an author in the last throes of house-building.” I guess even the rich....

Don’t balk at the $16.00 entrance fee. It’s $16.00 well spent. We received a magnificent catalogue (which would easily cost $10.00 or more at other sites) filled with information about Wharton, the house and gardens, and the restoration work done, in progress, and contemplated by The Edith Wharton Trust. Newly completed is Edith Wharton’s library, the permanent home of her 2,700 book collection begun in her childhood and continuing until just before her death.

To begin our journey, Rob and I walked past the entrance into the huge stables. There we viewed an intelligent, informative video on Edith Wharton’s life, works, and home at The Mount. We learned about her background, childhood, and marriage, which, when it dissolved, caused her leave the house and relocate to France for the rest of her life.

We walked the quarter mile from the stables to the Mansion. It looked like a mansion to me although we were assured by the docents that in her day, Edith Wharton’s “cottage” was small and reserved. If you’ve ever been to Newport where the other socialites of her day built their “cottages,” you’ll know that’s true!

Rob and I took two tours of the Mansion, both included in the admission. The first, an hour long tour of Wharton’s beautiful gardens, was spectacular because we were the only two people on the tour, a reward, in part, of retirees’ ability to travel on weekdays. The volunteer guide was well versed in the types and habits of the garden rooms and paths as well as how the restorative work was done on the walks and walls. She indicated the differences in the land since Wharton’s time and how her views out to the water were different.

If you notice the stairs in this photos, you’ll see they are cut into the earth and are made of grass.

Interestingly, in trying to recreate the size of one huge arbor (pictured below), they relied on photographs taken at the time of one particular visitor. By looking at his photos in different areas of the house, researchers were able to establish his height. Then, going back to the proposed arbor, they were able to establish its dimensions. As we listened to stories such as this one, we came to understand the puzzles that had to be solved before restoration could even begin.

On the second tour, the tour of the mansion, we were joined by a visiting group of Red Hatters. The house is exquisite, a stunning stylistic mixture of 18th century French and English sources. Yet, it is 100% American in its conveniences and plumbing! The combinations are seamless; the result is worth seeing with the guide who explained, once again, the painstaking research to recreate in as many ways possible, the home as well as the spirit of the home. Modern day designers put their own touches and approaches to work in each room’s decoration, relying on photographs as well as the information in Wharton’s The Decoration of Houses. For instance, Wharton shunned color descriptions such as jonquil yellow or willow green. She wrote of her attraction to black for staircase railings. At the Mount, the railings are black and the walls are a neutral tint, thus adding a dramatic effect Wharton sought. The designers paid close attention to detail. In the dining room, for instance, there is a cushion near Wharton’s chair for her favorite dog.

My favorite room was the library with its beautifully carved bookcases, shelves filled with exquisitely bound volumes that, in themselves, create an intellectual autobiography. Although Wharton wrote her own books in bed in the mornings, there is a wonderful desk in the library, parquet floors, and floor to ceiling windows to allow for adequate lighting. It’s a glorious room—a room to envy.

I add that there is a European bistro, the Terrace Café, but it was closed when we were there. There are lectures throughout the season (June to Aug.), and a variety of other special events. Famous writers appear—In Aug., 2006 former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky (who I've seen at the Dodge Poetry Festival) appeared as part of an annual poetry series. Visit the Mount’s website for information and some stunning photographs.

The Mount, as well as the entire Lenox area, is an exciting place for a book lover.