Ventfort Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ventfort Hall is a historic, Elizabethan-style mansion located at 104 Walker Street, Lenox, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and home to the non-profit Museum of the Gilded Age.
The house was built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan, sister of J. P. Morgan, to designs by architects Rotch & Tilden. Its exterior is brick with brownstone trim, containing 28 rooms in a total of 28,000 square feet of living space, including 15 bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, and 17 fireplaces. The house was set within a large landscaped garden of 26 acres (now 11.7 acres).
After the Morgans' deaths, the house was rented for several years to Margaret Vanderbilt, then purchased in 1925 by W. Roscoe and Mary Minturn Bonsal who in turn sold the house in 1945, after which it served as a dormitory for Tanglewood music students, a summer hotel, the Michel Fokine Ballet Summer Camp, and religious community housing. In the mid 1980s a nursing home developer planned to demolish the building, but in 1997 the property was made into a non-profit museum and has been subsequently restored.
