Lenox is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is in Western Massachusetts and part of the Pittsfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,095 at the 2020 census. Lenox is the site of Shakespeare & Company and Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Lenox includes the villages of New Lenox and Lenoxdale, and is a tourist destination during the summer.
Tanglewood is a music venue and festival in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the Tanglewood Music Center, Tanglewood Learning Center, and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Besides classical music, Tanglewood hosts the Festival of Contemporary Music, jazz and popular artists, concerts, and frequent appearances by James Taylor, John Williams, and the Boston Pops.
Peabody & Stearns was a premier architectural firm in the Eastern United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the firm consisted of Robert Swain Peabody (1845–1917) and John Goddard Stearns Jr. (1843–1917). The firm worked on in a variety of designs but is closely associated with shingle style.
The Breakers was a Queen Anne style cottage designed by Peabody and Stearns for Pierre Lorillard IV and located along the Cliff Walk on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island. In 1883, it was referred to as "unquestionably the most magnificent estate in Newport."
The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit organization of its kind in the world and has 100,000 member households as of 2021. In addition to land stewardship, the organization is also active in conservation partnerships, community supported agriculture (CSA), environmental and conservation education, community preservation and development, and green building. The Trustees owns title to 120 properties on 27,000 acres (11,000 ha) in Massachusetts, all of which are open to the public. In addition, it holds 393 conservation restrictions to protect an additional 20,000 acres (8,100 ha). Properties include historic mansions, estates, and gardens; woodland preserves; waterfalls; mountain peaks; wetlands and riverways; coastal bluffs, beaches, and barrier islands; farmland and CSA projects; and archaeological sites.
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1885 and 1886.
Gore Place is a historic country house, now a museum, located at 52 Gore Street, Waltham, Massachusetts. It is owned and operated by the nonprofit Gore Place Society. The 45-acre (180,000 m2) estate is open to the public daily without charge; an admission fee is charged for house tours. A number of special events are held throughout the year including an annual sheepshearing festival and a summer concert series.
Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
The Mission House is an historic house located at 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was built between 1741 and 1742 by a Christian missionary to the local Mahicans. It is a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1968 as a rare surviving example of a colonial mission house. It is now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations.
Elm Court is a former Vanderbilt mansion located on Old Stockbridge Road, straddling the town line between Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and until July 2012 was owned and operated as a hotel by descendants of the original owners.
Chesterwood was the summer estate and studio of American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) located at 4 Williamsville Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Most of French's originally 150-acre (61 ha) estate is now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which operates the property as a museum and sculpture garden. The property was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of French's importance in American sculpture.
Kenmore is a historic house at 1385 State Road in Richmond, Massachusetts. It was built by Henry Sherrill, one of Richmond's early settlers, and is a fine example of transitional Georgian-Federalist architecture. The house has retained much of its historic integrity despite significant renovation and modernization in the 20th century.
Shadow Brook Farm Historic District is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is a historic district that includes six re-purposed farm buildings related to the former 'Shadowbrook' mansion destroyed by fire in 1956. Designed by architect H. Neill Wilson with landscaping by Frederick Law Olmsted, the mansion and farm buildings were built for Anson Phelps Stokes in 1893. Andrew Carnegie acquired Shadowbrook in 1917 and died there in 1919. It served as a Jesuit novitiate from 1922 until 1970. Following the fire, a non-equivalent structure of the same name took its place and currently is home to the Kripalu Center. Today the historic district primarily encompasses Berkshire Country Day School, which acquired its campus from the Stokes family in 1963. The historic district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Villa Virginia is a historic country estate in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on Ice Glen Road. Built in 1914–15, it is one of the last of the great Berkshire Cottages to be built in Stockbridge and a significant example of Mediterranean Renaissance Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Shepherd Brooks Estate is an historic property at 275 Grove Street in Medford, Massachusetts. The 82-acre (33 ha) property is owned by the city of Medford, and managed by a trust established to preserve the property. Its principal feature is the manor house constructed in 1880 by Shepherd Brooks, a member of a prominent Medford family, and is the only major 19th-century estate to survive relatively undeveloped in the city. The grounds are open to the public daily from dawn to dusk, and tours of the house are available during the summer.
H. (Henry) Neill Wilson was an architect with his father James Keys Wilson in Cincinnati, Ohio; on his own in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and for most of his career in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The buildings he designed include the Rookwood Pottery building in Ohio and several massive summer cottages in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Stockbridge Bowl, also known as Lake Mahkeenac, is a 372-acre (1.51 km2) artificially impounded body of water that is 2.5 miles (4 km) north of the village of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Above the lake's north side with sweeping views to the south is Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Gertrude Robinson Smith was an arts patron, philanthropist and a founder of the Berkshire Symphonic Festival, which came to be known as Tanglewood. At the height of the Great Depression, Smith gathered the human resources and secured the financial backing that supported the festival's early success. Her leadership from the first concerts in August 1934 through the mid-1950s has been recognized as foundational to assuring the success of one of the world's most celebrated seasonal music festivals.
Oronoque was built as the country home of Birdseye Blakeman, Esq., and is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The building was designed by William Henry Miller and built by Powers & Sons, Rochester. The house exterior was built to resemble a royal hunting lodge. The 12 acre grounds were landscaped by Nathan Franklin Barrett.
