The Mount (Lenox, Massachusetts)
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The Mount
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Edith Wharton's The Mount
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| Location | 2 Plunkett Street, Lenox |
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| Nearest city | Lenox, Massachusetts |
| Coordinates | 42°19′52″N 73°16′55″W / 42.3311°N 73.2820°WCoordinates: 42°19′52″N 73°16′55″W / 42.3311°N 73.2820°W |
| Built | 1902 |
| Architect | Ogden Codman, Jr. and Francis L.V. Hoppin |
| NRHP Reference # | 71000900 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 11, 1971 |
| Designated NHL | November 11, 1971 |
The Mount (1902) is a country house in Lenox, Massachusetts, the home of noted American author Edith Wharton, who designed the house and its grounds and considered it her "first real home." The estate, located in The Berkshires, is open to the public. The property was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
Today, The Mount is a cultural center and historic house museum, welcoming close to 40,000 visitors each year. The house is open daily from May through October for house and garden tours. Speciality Ghost and Backstairs tours are also offered. In the summer, The Mount hosts performances, music, lectures, and outdoor sculpture exhibits. Additional special events are hosted throughout the year.
The Mount's main house was inspired by the 17th-century Belton House in England, with additional influences from classical Italian and French architecture. Edith Wharton used the principles described in her first book, The Decoration of Houses (co-authored with Ogden Codman, Jr.), when she designed the house. She thought that good architectural expression included order, scale, and harmony. Its west (entry) elevation is three stories; on the garden side it is two stories with an opening out to a large, raised, stone terrace overlooking the grounds. The house exterior is a striking white stucco, strongly set off by dark green shutters, and rises from a quasi-rustic foundation of coarse field stone. Clusters of gables and white chimneys rise from the roof, which is capped with a balustrade and cupola. This main house is augmented by Georgian Revival gatehouse and stable, and a beautifully restored Lord and Burnham Greenhouse. Wharton's sometime collaborator, Ogden Codman, Jr., assisted with the architectural design. Wharton's niece, Beatrix Jones Farrand, designed the kitchen garden and the drive; Farrand was the only woman of the eleven founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
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