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Tour of the Gilded Cottages of the Berkshire Hills

Bob begins his tour of cottages in the Berkshire Hills in Lenox, Massachusetts. Starting with Ventfort Hall, an Elizabethan-style mansion built in 1893 for Sarah Morgan, the sister of J. P. Morgan and recently the backdrop for the movie "Cider House Rules." This home is now the site of the Museum of the Gilded Age. Bellefontaine Mansion built in 1897 is a copy of Louis XIV's Petit Trianon; it is now the home of the Canyon Ranch Spa. Guy Lowell, who later went on to design the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), the New York City Courthouse and hundreds of private residences designed this marble four-story cottage. The next stop is at the Wheatleigh mansion. Designed by the Boston architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns, more than 150 artisans from Italy created the building's intricate carvings, indoors and out. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of such grand spaces as New York's Central Park, the White House grounds, and the Great Smoky Mountains and Acadia National Parks, sculpted Wheatleigh Park from the surrounding property. Bob takes a longer stop at the Italianate Spring Lawn Mansion where the Shakespeare & Company has their home. Tina Packer, president of Shakespeare & Company, guides Bob around the Spring Lawn Mansion, pointing out the Hampton Staircase inspired by Henry VIII's home. Spring Lawn was the first residence designed by Guy Lowell. The home's outbuildings are being converted to exhibits, small theatres, and teaching areas to further the theatrical education of its visitors. The showpiece of the property is the future site of the New Rose Theatre, a replica of the 1587 Bankside playhouse, Shakespeare's theatre prior to The Globe.

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Tour of the Gilded Cottages of the Berkshire Hills

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Clip Transcript For:

Tour of the Gilded Cottages of the Berkshire Hills

computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate

" The beautiful Berkshire hills are dotted with many fantastic. Cottages and estates all of them from the gilded age we think of Newport, Rhode Island as being the home of the 400 in the summertime but many folks came here we're in the town of Lenox Massachusetts. And in this town in 1897. -- fort hall was built. For man named George Morgan. It recently saw an adaptive reuse as the main character or location in the movie Cider House Rules. A mansion called -- Fontaine from 1897. Was designed on the original 53 and on. It's now the home of the canyon ranch spot -- a famous property from 1892. Designed in the Italian -- style by Peabody and Stearns has been a successful inn for many years and spring lawn also here in Lenox also in the Italian it stopped dating to 194. It's done duty in several adaptive reincarnations as a boys' school for numerous decades and now it's the home of Shakespeare and company. Let's go inside and meet Tina packer who. Who founded it and learn more about it. And hello Tina what a wonderful -- yeah."

" All business it to this extent -- fabulous I've been told that it was inspired by Hampton court under the -- played well. So they say and is sent me being used right now in the play which has connections to the head Yates I think it's kind of appropriate it's appropriate because this is a house from 194. Now and it was the first."

" House designed by young."

" Cambridge architect in -- and I still guy Lowell of the famous Lowell family that he built the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and he also built the courthouse in New York City as well as hundreds of other private residence. But this does the bank says private residence well debate -- building he ever built it's a serious up. Amongst other things today and we'll assume. Lost about -- politics you haven't --"

" The house itself is as you said serves as a performance space is -- a room that's big enough to be -- yes it is in 1996. In the -- this was originally the main salon in the house that's right. -- I'm so we do mostly plays from the center of the century about same time that the play was built I see some modern plays as well. Now this is not all there is though you've got a huge campus here for he's. Are putting zeros report heavier one of the things we have 648. Because and it's going to be an international cents a for Shakespeare performance and studies so we don't just perform. Well we do a huge education program which maybe you have time -- yes all the high school students in that. Wonderful founders' theatre which is just here. The founders is it was a quonset huts on this and cut you might call it in which we adapted and made into the nice beautiful. It's out of canvas and scaffolding. I had to get a chance to see that's building here it's also historic doesn't it can be -- white building it's in the mountains it's a dorm building built by the Lenox school for boys. Here we have a lot of old farm buildings and the old field house we can get. And that is going to be small fit in that but it's principally. -- to be the village that surrounds the rose Playhouse which I would tell you about next. And but he's going to be a place where people will meet greet and have an exhibit space. On Shakespeare's life times in the Brosius let's do talk about the rose package that's big plan for the split this is the big flat and it's going to be and all -- to -- creation. All of these fifteen AT seven rose Playhouse that's the because it's of the blue -- Which they've built in London so we've been working with the museum of London. -- they now have done all there is such that they did for ten years that they've set the foundations. And now they've disseminated the information. So we have all of that information so we can do the most accurate re creation. Possible."

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Walking behind the house, Bob makes a few observations about the design. He points out that the house and old barn were not exactly parallel to each other creating some issues fo the breezeway addition. Th architect chose to build the breezeway parallel with the barn, but as the roof is right onto the house, when you look at the roof overhang right on the corner of the addition it subtly increases in width in one direction. Another interesting feature of the architect's design is a 4 ft. wide and t10 ft. long "gang plank"-like balcony coming out from the second floor masterbath.

Putting in a Gable Window

While on the third floor of the Medford house Bob looks at the Pella window installation in the gable end. The architect's original plan called for one big glass triangle but this would have involved a great deal of structural reworking, so the plan changed to installing two smaller triangular windows with 2 x 4s retained in the middle maintaining structural stability. In a flashback to the installation, carpenter Matt Alexander removed the exterior wall covering from the area and used a chalk line to mark the opeing for the new windows. next he cut away the sheathing with a reciprocating saw to create the opening, folded out the nailing flange on the custom Pella windows and nailed the flange to the sheathing. The windows are aluminum-clad, with double glazed argon-filled low-E glass.