The Mount makes for fun summer day trip
LENOX, MA. >> During track season, there are endless possibilities in the region for interesting day trips on “Dark Days” or a fun weekend jaunt.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edith Wharton’s home, “The Mount,” in Lenox, Mass., is one such place.
Built in 1902, its architecture is greatly influenced by her early years living abroad as a young child in Italy, France, England and Spain.
However, she was born (1862) into America’s privileged Victorian-era upper class, the only daughter of a wealthy New York family named Jones that belonged to the social elite. In fact, it was from this family that the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” came from.
Edith married Theodore Wharton, an avid outdoorsman, while her interests were devoted to books, which she both read and would later write voraciously -- penning 40 works in 40 years.
Her first published work was about interior design and quickly became quite popular. She personally designed “The Mount” and oversaw its construction.
But it was fiction that resulted in her worldwide fame
and a following among readers that is still strong today. One of best-known novels is “The Age of Innocence,” which was made into a 1993 movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis. While living at “The Mount” Wharton wrote “The House of Mirth” (1905) and “Ethan Frome” (1911). This was a very productive, but also troubled time in her life.
She and her husband had little in common, which didn’t make for a happy domestic life. They both also had extra-marital affairs, which compounded problems, along with Theodore’s onset of mental illness.
In 1911, Edith could no longer deal with the situation and the couple divorced, after just 10 years at “The Mount.”
She went to France and in addition to her prolific writing, did a great deal of humanitarian work caring for the sick and wounded during World War II. Wharton died in 1937.
After the Whartons, “The Mount” was owned by two different families and then became home to the prestigious Foxhollow school for girls, from 1942-76. By then it had fallen into serious disrepair.
In 1980, a collaborative partnership and considerable funding resulted in “The Mount’s” restoration. Guided tours are available and guests may also wander wooded trails, a Sculpture Walk and immaculately groomed gardens and grounds to absorb the atmosphere and environment that first attracted Wharton to the Berkshires, where some of her greatest work was done.
For information go to: www.edithwharton.org.