Joslyn Castle Tour Day 2 Tuesday, October 10, 2018

A beautiful but slightly foggy morning here at Yankee Inn in the Massachusetts Berkshires. A breakfast reminiscent of a Hampton Inn - scrambled eggs (probably powdered) bacon, bagels, banana or hard boiled egg, cereals and a waffle machine. Could be worse I suppose, but the coffee is good.

We climb aboard our oversized coach this morning at 9:30 for the short trip to Stockbridge and the Norman Rockwell Museum. The museum is everything Rockwell, hundreds of his original paintings, all of his 300 Saturday Evening Post covers on display, plus a significant number of other works, War Bond posters, Boys Life covers, advertising pieces for Ford, General Electric, California Raisins and others.

A current show on display is a mounting of a number of the artists and illustrators who were teachers and inspirations to Rockwell, together with a lot of information on his life and family, his children, his three wives and his ancestors.

The museum sits on some hundred acres of rolling wooded countryside abutting the Housatonic River, and includes a stone “cottage”, formerly owned by the Musgrave family which now serves as the headquarters of the Norman Rockwell Foundation. Also on the grounds is the small red barn structure that served as Rockwell’s last studio, fitted out as if he had just stepped away for a moment. The grounds are very well maintained and planted. The Museum itself dates only from 1993 and was designed by Robert A.M. Stern. The studio building was moved to the site from its original location in the village of Stockbridge. A very interesting stop, although the Foundation headquarters building was not open to the public.

We left Stockbridge at 12:30 and motored back to Lenox for our luncheon and appointment at Ventefort, a 28,000 square foot Jacobean style “cottage” built in 1903 by Sarah and George Morgan. Sarah was the sister of J.P. Morgan and her husband was a 7th cousin, so she was Sarah Morgan Morgan!

We were served a very pleasant lunch in the dining room or on the front porch, overlooking a lawn down to the Housatonic. As our tour is sponsored and a function of the Sarah and George Joslyn home, we were very interested in our tour of this home. Our general impression is that the Joslyn home is further along in its restoration than the Morgan home. Ventefort was sold a few times and finally was in the process of being stripped of its paneling and parts in anticipation of being demolished to make way for a senior living home prior to its being saved by a fundraiser and assigned to the Historic Trust, there has been and continues to be a lot of restoration needed, both interior and exterior.

The parallels with Joslyn are numerous, the methods used for funding, such as Designer Show houses, use as a wedding venue, staging of mystery plays, were familiar.  This home is larger than the nearly 20,000 square foot Joslyn home, and sits on 11 acres of ground versus our 5+ acres, but otherwise much the same as of its age and times. This home is of brick, features three floors (although only the first plus 1/2 of the second are now available for viewing) but both have a bowling alley in the basement, and are struggling to maintain a flavour of the age. I will say that the Joslyn grounds are in much better shape, with its gardens and plantings. This emphasis is missing at Ventefort.

We leave here at 3:30, some of the group returning to the hotel for a rest, and the majority trouping off for a walkabout in historic Lenox, stopping in at art galleries, looking at clothing stores, and stopping for a drink at outdoor patios along the way. Back to the Yankee Inn and then off to an Italian restaurant for our satisfying meal. We are back in our rooms before 9:00 and a chance to rest after a busy day.