Lenox, Massachusetts

The Mount

The mansion home of author Edith Wharton.

Edith Wharton lived from 1862 to 1937, and for penning such tales as “The House of Mirth” and her Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Age of Innocence”, she has become one of the country’s most celebrated authors. She’s also beloved for her ghost stories, including such classics as “The Eyes”, “Pomegranate Seed”, and “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell”.

Many of those stories were written at her mansion estate in Lenox, MA, which is in the western part of the state. Called “The Mount”, it was built in 1902 according to Wharton’s own design on more than 100 acres of land. It’s a large, white, three-story, rectangular building with a black roof and shutters that is set on a hill overlooking the garden and the surrounding woods and countryside.

Wharton lived at The Mount for less than a decade, leaving it after her divorce. She moved to France, where she lived out the rest of her days. In 1911, the Whartons sold the property, which continued to be a private residence until it eventually was sold and turned into a girl’s dormitory, and then the headquarters of a theater group. In the 1990s, it was restored back to being Wharton’s Mount and turned into a tourist attraction.

Adapted with Permission from: The New England Grimpendium by J.W. Ocker