3 Gilded Age Berkshire retreats for sale right now
Perfect for swanning around Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between rounding up historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
The phrase ?Gilded Age mansion? generally brings about visions of the grand mansions of Newport, Rhode Island, once frequented by New York socialites and assorted high-society glitterati.
And while that vision certainly holds true, Newport was just one of the destinations-of-choice for the financially well-endowed: The cooling hills of the Berkshires offered this demographic another summertime refuge.
Stretching up the westernmost boarder of Massachusetts, the Berkshires attracted Boston?s and New York?s wealthy set from the 1860s right up through the turn of the 20th century. Unlike Newport, the Berkshires offered a slightly less formal environment for social activity. It also played host to a crowd that skewed a bit more artistic and literary, like Edith Wharton, whose country house, The Mount, is located in the town of Lenox, Massachusetts.
Between Lenox and the neighboring town of Stockbridge, families commissioned some of the best working architects of the time?like McKim, Mead & White?to build around 75 houses, which were referred to as ?cottages,? even though their size and appointment was anything but quaint.
While a number of them have been lost to fire and demolition, plenty still survive?and a few are on the market.
Courtesy of Zil...
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