Lenox — Rumors are the perks and pestilence of small-town living. The latest rumor is that Cranwell Resort and Spa in Lenox has sold.
When asked about the sale, Cranwell General Manager Carl Pratt, said, “I can’t say anything at this point. We are preparing a statement. Until that statement is perfected, I am not at liberty to comment.”
When the reputed purchaser, David Ward, LD Builders of Pittsfield, was asked, he said, “I cannot comment because the negations are at a delicate point.”
With those fact-filled non-statements, the Berkshire rumor mill kept grinding and spit out the figure $3 million. What is $3 million? If that is the total purchase price, then all of Cranwell is not being purchased. Elm Court sold for more than $9 million and it has a mere 90 acres and one mansion. The new owners of Elm Court fought hard for permits to build 114 bedrooms, a restaurant, and a spa. Cranwell, on the other hand, already has 114 bedrooms, two restaurants, and a spa. The resort has 350 acres with a golf course, not one but two Berkshire cottages (Wyndhurst and Coldbrook), a pro shop, and a townhouse complex.
So what would $3 million buy? It may be a partial payment on the whole property or full payment on part of the property. Perhaps LD Builders wants just enough land to develop another cluster of townhouses similar to those on Route 7. Evidently, we will have that explanatory statement soon, but one thing is certain: however much land and however many buildings Ward purchases, he will get a huge chunk of Berkshire history. The history of Lenox is bound in former land transfers.
The property is one of the earliest land transfers made in the newly incorporated village of Lenox. In the Colonial Proprietor’s Record Book on October 25, 1770, a grant of 75 acres was recorded: “To Timothy Way and Samuel Jerome.” Way may have faded from our collective memory, but Samuel Jerome was the ancestor of Lady Randolph Churchill nee Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill. The tract, as most of the town, remained undeveloped.
In 1787, Lenox became the Berkshire shire town (county seat) bringing to Lenox all those who had business with the court, and precipitating a building boom. On the thirteenth of June, 1803, for the sum of seventy dollars, the hill was sold to Ezra Blossom — the Gaoler of Lenox (jailer/sheriff). Blossom built a farmhouse, planted fruit trees, and named the property Blossom Hill.
In December 1814, Blossom’s advertisement for the sale of Blossom Hill included a description: “26 acres with a good orchard which makes about twenty barrels of cider annually…a house on the premises, nearly new and well-furnished, and a convenient barn and other out-buildings.” Blossom sold the land for $1,200.
In 1803, the Lenox Academy for Boys was founded. Over the next 47 years, the Academy became well-known and grew. On April 30, 1850 Blossom Hill was sold to Charles Hotchkiss, Headmaster of the Lenox Academy for Boys.
Natural beauty and educated residents combined to make Lenox a magnet for great American artists and writers. In September, 1853, Hotchkiss sold Blossom Hill to author and clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher renamed it Blossom Farm.mStanding on the brow of his hill, Beecher wrote, “From here I see the very hills of heaven.” He claimed he could see “a range of sixty miles by the simple turn of the eye.”
In his day, Beecher was called one of the most famous men alive, but his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, would eclipse him.
Beecher was named correspondent in a divorce case – not a proper role for a clergyman – and his fortunes began to unravel. Before the scandal, the $4,500 to purchase Blossom Farm was raised by a grateful congregation and a grateful publisher. After the scandal, Beecher lost his New York pulpit and was forced to sell the Lenox property. Beecher sold it to General John F. Rathbone for the tidy sum of $8,000.
Rathbone wrote to Beecher that it was his intent to rename the property Beecher Hill. Beecher wrote back, “If you call it by the name indicated in your letter, I shall esteem it a greater compliment than if I had received a title from an English University.” Unfortunately, Rathbone learned of the scandal, and never fulfilled his promise. He renamed the property Wyndhurst.
The Beecher farmhouse was moved and Rathbone built on the spot to take advantage of the best views. Wyndhurst was a well-proportioned, large, and stately residence with a mansard roof. It was one of the earliest Berkshire Cottages.
By 1868 the courthouse had moved to Pittsfield, and Lenox’s fame and fortune was no longer as a shire town but as a resort. By 1882, Lenox’s reputation as a resort was established. Our hill received a second Berkshire cottage. United States Naval Captain John S. Barnes purchased from Joseph J. Clark a part of the hill “in consideration of $10,000.”
Next door to Wyndhurst, Captain Barnes built (or renovated and enlarged) Coldbrooke with the help of the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns. Landscape architect, Ernest Bowditch designed the grounds and gardens. The zenith of the cottage period was drawing near.
In 1893 Lenox was dubbed “the Queen of resorts,” and Rathbone sold Wyndhurst to John Sloane for the amazing price of $50,000. Sloane retained the name Wyndhurst, but razed the house. J.D. Sloane was the brother of W. D. Sloane (Elm Court). Together they established WJ Sloane & Co. in New York City. The furniture store was built upon their father’s import business and added exponentially to the Sloane bottom line.
Sloane’s Wyndhurst met the new standard in Berkshire Cottages. It was a Tudor mansion built of Perth Amboy brick designed by Peabody and Stearns. Wyndhurst was built on a rise commanding sweeping views of the Berkshire Hills. The landscape architect laid out the 250 acres with 40 acres of rolling lawn, 30 acres of woodland, and 180 acres of formal gardens, kitchen gardens, and greenhouses.
The landscape architect was Frederick Law Olmsted. In Olmsted style shrubbery was massed, lines gently curving, with an emphasis on trees, on natural appearance, and harmony with the views.
There was a stable with 16 boxes, a poultry shelter, and cow barn. Milk and cream were shipped daily to the family in New York and produce was shipped three times a week. Everything necessary was on the estate to maintain the Gilded Age lifestyle including obligatory President of the United States (McKinley) as dinner guest in 1897.
The first six land transfers were all residential properties. Soon, however, alternative uses for the great estates were sought. Cranwell was not the first; that honor goes to a club.
By 1928, the party was over. The Gilded Age was ended, and the cottages were relics of a bygone era. On the hill, an ambitious plan for a Berkshire Hunt and Country Club combined four former estates – Wyndhurst, Coldbrooke, Pinecroft, and Blantyre. Woodson R. Oglesby, former New York Congressman, started buying the estates at foreclosures. While $3 million appears to be an inadequate sum for a single Berkshire Cottage today, Oglesby bought four for under $100,000. Even that looked like a prodigious sum 13 years later.
The Berkshire Hunt and Country Club was heralded as (you guessed it) the re-birth of the Gilded Age in Berkshire. Club membership was by election only and the total number of members was limited to 750. When that number was reached, someone would have to die or resign for another member to be eligible.
Coldbrooke became the “bachelor building” with fourteen bedrooms; Wyndhurst was the “clubhouse” and there was a golf course and riding trails.
The society page was optimistic. Evidently no one read the other pages. On August 10, 1929 there was a full page spread about the second season of the Club. On an adjacent page it was reported that a Williams College professor warned, “Unemployment is a problem in need of an immediate solution.” A column on the financial page predicted, “The Stock Market will rally after a minor dip.” The Market crashed on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, two months and 19 days later.
The country was in depression. For a moment it looked as if those Club members would be untouched and the Club would continue. By 1933 the Club was assaulted by lawsuits and swamped in debt. In 1939, the land on the hill was sold for (approximately) $9,000 in back taxes.
For that price, Edward Cranwell bought the hill with two Berkshire Cottages: Wyndhurst and Coldbrook. In 1939, he gave it to the Jesuits to use as a school. The Jesuits named the school in honor of the donor — Cranwell Preparatory School.
Today, it is the Cranwell Resort and Spa. Tomorrow? We are waiting for the statement.
The one constant is change. This sale of Cranwell will be the tenth in a series, and it will not be the last. It is not the first attempt to turn an epitome of indulgence – a Berkshire Cottage — into a profit center. It is not the first attempt to change a building symbolic of another age into something useful in this age.
Next week: “Those in the know” say Blantrye is next.
