Cultural news & lodging information

With information and images in the public domain culled from Wikipedia, here is a look at Lenox, MA from the shiny days of the Gilded Age, including the Aspinwall Hotel, now site of Kennedy Park, Bellefontaine, now Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires, Belvoir Terrace, Church on the Hill, Lenox library, and Shadowbrook, now site of Kripalu.

Shadowbrook, Stokes, Carnegie, Jesuits, Fire, Kripalu

Shadowbrook was built in 1893 for Anson Phelps Stokes, who hired Frederick Law Olmsted to design the 900 acre grounds. The estate was purchased in 1917 by Andrew Carnegie, who died there in 1919. The 100 room house burned in 1956.

In 1922, the New England Province of the Society of Jesus purchased the Shadowbrook estate, which the Jesuits used as a seminary. The entire structure burned to the ground in a tragic fire in 1956, in which four of the Jesuits died. The Society then built the current brick structure on the site, maintaining their operation of the property until 1970, when they could no longer support it. The building stood empty for many years (13) until the New Age Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health purchased it in 1983.

more copy soon…