There is a corner of Stockbridge that is chock-a-block with stories. You can stand in one spot, pivot, and “read” Stockbridge history.
Gould Meadows
Today, it is a beloved area for dog walking; hiking; and looking at long views of the lake, hills, and streams. Forty-three years ago, in 1981, there was a plan to develop it. All 94.8 acres, all 1,125 feet of lake frontage were to be divided and developed into 60 mega-mansions.
George Wislocki, George “Gige” Darey, and Mary Flynn joined together and said “no.” Darey was on the Lenox Select Board and a member of Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife. Wislocki was executive director of Berkshire Natural Resources. Flynn was a member of the Stockbridge Select Board.
With state and federal funding and donations from the BSO, Camp Mah-Kee-Nac, and Laurel Hill Association, the three prepared to buy the land. It wasn’t enough, so Flynn put on her “begging hat” and added private donations to the pot.
Still, it took intervention from State Senators Jack Fitzpatrick, Silvio Conte, and Peter Webber. It required the vote of Town Meeting. Eventually, however, the job was done. Stockbridge owned the land and conserved it in perpetuity for all to enjoy.
We stood on the corner of Route 183 and Hawthorne as a bench was dedicated memorializing the Herculean feat. Here is the lesson: If you want to control land use, buy it.
Shadow Brook and The Corners
Everyone knows where Shadow Brook was, but where was The Corners? It was just below and across the street from Shadow Brook.
Built in Stockbridge in 1860 by George Higginson, it was part of a very different “Cottage” era. Prior to the Civil War, a desire was born out of combined religious reform and nationalism to perfect America, to improve life. It was considered the role of societies and churches to carry forward these reforms. As a God of Love replaced the Puritan God of Retribution, there followed a commitment to causes like abolition, contraception, suffrage, world peace, and temperance. The reformation called for a return to nature because the God of Love was found in nature.
The country was unspoiled, and country houses were to be comfortable but not showy. Entertainments were simple picnics and rambling walks. One walked to social engagements along the dark lanes accompanied by one servant engaged to carry the lamp. At dinner, one pulled back one’s own chair at the table. These were the precepts of the American Lake District and were soon to disappear.
Perhaps the battle between the “cottages” Shadow Brook and The Corners was symbolic of the battle to be played out in America generally. Post-Civil War America abandoned its agrarian roots and ushered in a new economic base: manufacturing. New wealth created a much fancier and stiffer society. The new Berkshire Cottage reflected the change.
In 1893, Anson Phelps Stokes built Shadow Brook, the largest house in America. The “simple” Berkshire cottage was a thing of the past. The Gilded Age had arrived. A coach-and-four took invitees to dinner. A footman pulled back the charts for jewel-bedecked ladies. The Berkshires welcomed the super-rich.
Stokes called upon his landscape architect Ernest Bowditch to solve two problems: The house was atop a hill and there was no water; the drive was quite long and so narrow no coach could turn around. The sight of a coach-and-four backing down the steep hill was sad enough, Stokes wrote, but complicated by a “terrible neighbor” who would not allow a widening if it infringed on his land.
“The terrible neighbor” was George Higginson, brother of the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Henry Higginson. He was also Bowditch’s cousin, and actually an obliging fellow.
George readily agreed to widen the drive provided he could see the house plans. He feared a house too large would spoil the beauty of the hillside. It may be that George knew nothing of architectural plans. He inspected and approved them never realizing they were plans of the largest private residence ever built in the United States excepting Biltmore.
Highwood
In 1845, Samuel G. and Anna Hazard Barker Ward hired noted architect and founder of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Richard Upjohn to design Highwood. Construction took almost a year.
The Wards were part of the emerging literary and artistic movements in mid-19th-century America. Sam had strong ties to Transcendentalists Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson in Boston, as well as the Century Association in New York. He was in a position, therefore, to bring together the literati of New York and Boston, and, at Highwood, he and Anna did.
In the rooms of Highwood, Jenny Lind sang, Fanny Kemble read Shakespeare aloud, Catharine Sedgwick argued abolition with Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Hawthorne sat at the dinner table handsome but silent. Whether his silence was shyness or disapproval, no one knew.
Their friends William Aspinwall and Caroline Sturgis Tappan followed from Boston and purchased a farm across the street. Upon the death of his father, Ward was compelled to return to Boston. The Tappans rented the larger and better-appointed Highwood and, in turn, rented the farmhouse to Nathanial and Sophia Hawthorne and their two children.
The Little Red Shanty
Hawthorne was not a fan of the house. He called it a shanty. There he wrote “The House of the Seven Gables,” “A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys,” and the outline of “The Blithedale Romance.”
Some claim the three most important desks in early American literature were in the Berkshires. They were the desk where Jonathan Edwards wrote “The Freedom of the Will,” the desk where Herman Melville wrote “Moby Dick,” and the desk where Hawthorne wrote “The House of the Seven Gables.” Melville’s desk is still in his house, Arrowhead Museum. Edwards’ house was razed, but the desk is in the Stockbridge Library. When Hawthorne’s house burned in 1890, the desk was lost. The house, however, was replicated and stands today.
Tanglewood
After the Civil War, the Tappans built Tanglewood. They relinquished Highwood, which the Wards sold. Over 60 years later, in the depth of the Great Depression, the last remaining Tappans—Caroline’s sister and daughter—endeavored to sell Tanglewood. They failed.
One day after a concert, the daughter had an inspiration. She gave the estate to Serge Koussevitzky. He gave it to the BSO, and the rest is history.
Some think some or all of Tanglewood is in Lenox. Some know better but claim it is for the cache. Some claim Tanglewood is between Lenox and Stockbridge as if it were its own state or a state of mind. They may be the most intuitive, but nevertheless, all of Tanglewood, The Little Red Shanty, Highwood, Shadow Brook, The Corners, and Gould Meadows, are in Stockbridge.
