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Background: The Mount

The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home, was completed in 1902. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/V0a3Xc_6BXc.

In 1897, at age 30 – long before she became a well-known novelist – Edith Wharton (1862-1937) co-authored The Decoration of Houses with architect Ogden Codman. According to Mitchell Owens in Architectural Digest, “Wharton and Codman wanted to educate the rich, to challenge them to build beautiful, practical, and pleasing residences whose details, from meaningful moldings to efficient floor plans to well-made, well-mannered furniture, would trickle down into every neighborhood in America in one form or another … Thousands of interior design books have come and gone since, but most, I would argue, merely repackage Wharton and Codman’s lessons in brighter colors and snappier prose.”

Edith Wharton’s home The Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts, was designed by Wharton and Codman. It illustrates the principles set out in Decoration of Houses. Of the three Berkshire cottages I visited – Naumkeag, Ventfort, and The Mount – The Mount is the one I would most like to live in.

Grounds

A map, for those of us who like to get our bearings.

No, silly. This is not the house: it’s the stables.

From the stables to the house is a quarter-mile stroll, with lovely woods on either side. So quiet and peaceful.

The house is a classic design: reminds me of Mount Vernon. More on that in a later post.

When we visited in summer 2020, we were sent to see the gardens before touring the house.

Formal garden

This is the formal end of the gardens …

… which ends in an allée  of lime trees. (The allée at Naumkeag is of linden trees.)

View of The Mount from the formal garden.

Grassy steps. Odd concept, but less obtrusive than stone.

The allée , coming up on steps on the right …

with an impressive view of the house.

Next week: the informal gardens at The Mount.

More

• Back in the summer of 2020, when most museums were still in lockdown or requiring masks, I discovered the pleasures of spending time in elaborate, exquisitely planned gardens. My first excursion was to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, where I visited the Gilded Age mansions of Naumkeag, Ventfort, and The Mount. Ventfort photos are here and here. Naumkeag is in 4 parts, beginning here.
• For more Gilded Mansions and their gardens on this website, click this tag.
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