28th June 2026 Lenox, MA…read more Be prepared to be awed as you enter the 50 acre estate and sanctuary of the famous author Edith Wharton, named The Mount, it is a rather remarkable example of the magnificent oasis she created in 1902, during the height of the Gilded Age. The Mount located in Lenox, MA, served as her primary sanctuary when she was in her 40s, and at the peak of her fame as a Pulitzer prize winning Author, which was extremely rare for a woman at the time. Wharton penned literary classics such as, 'The House of Mirth' here. Today, the property operates as a vibrant cultural center featuring guided house tours, art exhibitions, and sprawling formal gardens which are oft rented for large weddings. We were thrilled to get a glimpse of the vast well-maintained garden grounds and mansion. It is definitely worth a visit whilst in the Berkshires. Entry is $20, which includes a one hour guided tour, but do stay to linger and explore the magnificent grounds of this stunning estate that was refurbished to its glory after millions of dollars were donated in the 1990s, and are continued in the present. Please enjoy my photos, and thank you for reading.

Took the tour. It feels like you are rushing through - so much information is given. The tour lasts…read moreand hour and it hardly seems enough to cover three floors of house. After the tour we were free to wander at our leisure. The gardens are well manicured. A video in the house shows the history of the property and photos of restoration inside and out. Gives a real appreciation of the restoration work done here. Amazing. The woodland path is lovely, shaded and serene. There were childrens programs going on along the path during our wander. There is also a sculpture event happening with pieces scattered along the paths. Park in the dirt lot by the stables where you can purchase tickets and watch an orientation video. It's about a five minute walk to the house from here. A book walk begins here too-a series of signs, each one page of a childrens book. If you need handicap parking, buy tickets online, drive past the stable and park near the house. Very informative tour. An abunfance of information throughout the house. Cafe with prepared food on the terrace overlooking the grounds. Plan to spend two to three hours.

I am a lifelong fan of Jacob's Pillow! I have been to so many performances here and enjoyed each…read moreone. I am also a frequent visitor of the gift shop, and I even took a dance class when I was younger. Most recently, I came for an outdoor dance performed by two different dance teams that had collaborated on Irish Step-dancing pieces. I was told that I would appreciate the performance because I have some Irish in my blood, not sure how that works, but I really did enjoy it! The dancers worked so well together. They glided across the stage, and they looked so happy to be there. There was one dancer in particular who really seemed like there was nowhere he would rather be. I also came for a tap dancing performance and I was in awe of all the performers who clearly put 110% into their performance. I was beyond happy with both experiences, and I've always greatly appreciated the talent and effort of all performers.

There is no better place to watch a ballet show without air conditioning in a hot summer night…read more Bring your picnic baskets as the on premise restaurant is always booked solid. We saw the Dutch National Ballet and return for Martha Graham later this season.

Sense and Sensibility was THE worst production I have ever seen in my 52 years of theatre!…read more Atrocious! Shame - always have had marvelous experiences here. Producer/director failure. Only one actor in drag? Confusing half ( almost ) funny; half serious. Two roles per actor! And no scenery changes- apart from the imaginary piano forté. Utter disaster.

First time attending this unique & beautiful outdoor theatre. And maybe my last time too…read more Though I haven't read or attended any Shakespeare plays since 12th grade I am fairly certain Shakespeare would be rolling over in his grave had he witnessed the butchering of this Classic! What the He** was that? This director turned a classic into garbage by inserting his view of modernizing the story, the costumes, the music - everything. I can tell you it was difficult to not walk out before the end of this performance. With respect to the hard working professional actors we did not until 3-5 minutes left in the show when it further fell apart and we just said NO MAS! I would to try this again but it will have to be a non Shakespeare play. Oh and BTW, the ticket seller said that this play was really good & funny. Really? Maybe if your CBD was laced with something. Overall not an enjoyable evening and surely a waste of $90. Too bad. You win some & you lose some. I put this one in the loss column.

I left out my (long) detour to Tanglewood in Lenox MA! It's a family tradition for milestone…read morebirthdays. A lawn-chair picnic, classical music, good times (when weather allows). Well, it was perfect this time (Jul 2026). We have to keep quiet (or sleep :-) until intermission. Haha. Mozart before, Tchaikovsky after. A beautiful day in the Berkshires!

The best place on earth. Home away from home! A wonderful landscape to listen to classical music…read morewhile wondering the stunning grounds.

Beautiful house and gardens. Purchase tickets online before you visit. Parking is very limited…read more Grounds are grass, mulch and stairs. Not accessible. Only the lower floor of the house is accessible. Take the garden tour. It provides much information about the family, building the home and gardens and the architects/designers. Well worth the time. The property is on a hill so wear your walking shoes. A dirt 'one way' road leads past the house, to the dirt parking lot, then down the hill off the property. The lower part of the road, off property, is very rutted. (it happens to drive right past Norman Rockwell's grave site) Early spring the gardens are beautiful. The staircase from the cutting garden to the house is gorgeous. A leisurly walk down the Linden walk then curves around to a stroll in the wood. Many little gardens areas. Plan to spend at least two or three hours.

Another really underrated museum and estate in the Berkshires, the gardens and grounds are amazing…read more You have a wonderful view of the valley below and the house has a lot of stately charm. The tour guide we had was fantastic and is probably one of the best ones I've had for a museum tour. He was informative but kept it light. I didn't feel like he was flooding the zone with information to flex. There's some Asian/Chinese flavor in the home and the surrounding gardens, as the Choates had a keen interest in Asia. There's significant walking up and down, so keep that in mind, and not a ton of parking. This summer cottage is worth a visit, especially if you're interested in estates during the Gilded Age.

This place is amazing! My 12 year daughter loved it! We will def be back ... it was worth the…read moredrive here! These people put a lot of work in to this place and it paid off... I thought this was even better than the haunted hay ride! Huge thumbs up!!!!!

Horrible experience. Run!…read more Alison came to our house, measured our area. We have a confirmed email. The print was sent right to our framer and framed. We learned print was not numbered or signed and after a $1000 frame we saw it was the wrong size. She blamed everyone else but herself. The framer and I agree to split the cost with her and she refused. We showed the documentation to a lawyer and he said it was clear and we didn't owe her the money for the wrong size print. We paid to get her out of our life and how have a print which doesn't fit the space and is not numbered or signed. Run!!!!

Loved this gallery. Amazing collection of artists and all types are imagery. And the gallery owners…read moreare great. Well worth a visit. Great to work with. We will be back.

I was researching things to do in the Berkshires while my classmates and I were vacationing. This…read morepeaked our interest as we're all tech-fascinated people, and my husband was an animation major. It's a free museum visit, but because it's privately run, you have to call them and make special arrangements for them to come and open the museum. The pros: you get a private tour, and hours aren't limited to your usual 9-5. The cons: since it's only run by 2 people, you're really at their mercy when you show up and they may or may not be on there way there still. Admittedly it's nothing fancy, but if you're legitimately into animation, it's a really fun casual tour. They go very old school on some animation techniques. They have a gift shop with some animation trinkets you can buy. For extra money if you have time, you can also create your own animation with them. We opted out of that one. If you're in the area anyway, it's a great place to stop by. Otherwise, I wouldn't go out of your way to travel to the area just for this.

Remember carnival sideshows and the relentless shilling that happens out in front of the midway…read moretent? This is what it feels like to visit AniMagic. The handbill reads, "50% off Make Your Own Animation in our Hands-On Studio," and "$20 workshop includes 2-hr training, materials, and your creation on take-home video (reg. $40). Good for dates! Absolutely not. What we received for $40 instead of a 2-hour, make-your-own-animation workshop was: - a 10-minute tour of all the overpriced optical illusion toys in the dusty gift shop - a 10 minute "free" tour of their "museum," a small room full of sight gags and posters, and an expanding sphere that drops out of nowhere, just barely missing your head. We weren't allowed to linger over the really interesting things - a family tree of all the animators and animation studios in the Berkshires, the actual crab puppets from a food commercial, a technical Oscar - and were instead hustled (pun intended) from one thing to another, with a long, incomprehensible spiel accompanying our visits with long-outdated computer equipment, trompe l'oeil toys, and a mechanical Donald Duck on a high wire. I feared for my eyes during the entire visit. - a bait-and-switch video (really! on VHS!) of claymation (plasticine stop-motion animation), claimed to have been created by the guy's workshop students (we'll get to that in a minute). - 20 minutes of doing exactly what this guy impatiently told us to do, followed by being hustled (again, pun intended) out the front door. In that twenty minute (not two hour!) workshop, we were treated to a machine-gun-fire rapidity of commands by a person who had absolutely no intention of allowing us to make our own animation. We were told to sit at a table in a back workshop and were nonconsensually videotaped as he told us exactly what to do with the plasticine. When the camera was off, he was barking orders at us to make simple stick figures, which were NOTHING like the melting snowmen, dancing flowers, and amazing animals of the teaser video. I felt like I was promised a visit with a unicorn, but when I pulled back the oilcloth tent flap, I was treated to a brief glimpse of a dog with a tree branch secured precariously to its forehead with a necktie. As dreams of a romantic afternoon evaporated in the exact way that my forehead sweat didn't, I noticed his sign, printed in ALL CAPS, which read "THIS IS NOT BURGER KING. YOU DO IT *MY* WAY." No joke, if you have to make a sign to explain to people that they will adhere directly to your totalitarian clay regime, you probably shouldn't be in the business of working with small humans. Any humans. We've both made movies before, and - in the case of my beloved, who's taught classes in animation - brought some measure of competent experience to the table. I had hoped to learn something further about new technology's role in stop-motion animation, and have time to build my character, the backbone of any subject-based creative endeavor. Instead, I was given two minutes to cut legs out of a tube and shove a head onto a trunk with exacting precision, what this guy called "surgery." He had his spiel down pat. When I tried to ask if I could make something else, he said "NO." When I asked if I could make my figure an animal, he said "NO!" He sighed, and growled, and grimaced, and flat-out took our pieces away several times and just built them his damn self. It was as if we weren't there, because every time he noticed we had any selfhood, he seemed supremely annoyed at our very existence. Show's over, folks, keep on moving. The best part of this celluloid turd was when we went back into the main room and were told how to press computer buttons on a 1998 iMac running iMovie 2.0, which apparently required a complex call-and-response system to actuate still photos from a twenty-year-old, 0.5 megapixel webcam in the shape of a giant eye. I prayed that this eye would bear witness to our ordeal. Instead, we were told that we were making different movies (not one, as we at least expected to do), and were told what the movies would be about. We were not allowed to touch the figures more than twice apiece, because we were Doin' It Wrong, so he positioned the figures and told us when to take the pictures and basically used us to fulfill a role he had long before decided needed to be filled with deformed, ugly clay monstrosities. I imagined that a clay horse would run through the set and rescue my poor puppet, or, at the very least, trample it into the earth so it could avoid suffering further. He wouldn't let us do any post-production, forcing us instead to watch as he looped "our" terrible movies, added copyright-infringing music, and tasteless audio effects. We didn't even get a copy - we had to hunt on YouTube for it! When we were led out with a Bye Now after 40 minutes, we knew we'd been had. It's so unfortunate, too, because these people are so very talented (Irena is WAY more talented than he is). Run!!