It’s spring!  This weekend, the Berkshires is a great destination for hiking during the day, and for enjoying restaurants and performances in the evening.  See Brook Farm Inn’s “Take A Hike” package.  It will be sunny, in the 50’s, perfect for being outdoors this weekend.  And in the evening on April 3rd, go to the Colonial Theatre for “Music and Dance of the Andes.”

Saturday, March 28, 4 PM

Four Millionaires and their Berkshire Mountains

Slide Lecture by Berkshire historian, author and columnist Bernard Drew.  Followed by Victorian Tea with the speaker.

The fascinating Gilded Age stories behind David Dudley Field Jr. of Stockbridge (Ice Glen and the north face of Monument Mountain), William C. Whitney of Lenox (October Mountain), Fred Pearson of Great Barrington (Bear Mountain and Austerlitz Ridge) and Arthur D. Budd of Windsor (Judge’s Hill and Notchview).

Guests of Brook Farm Inn can enjoy the beauty of the Berkshires this spring with our new special, “Take A Hike.”  We’ve hiked many of the local trails, and can offer suggestions and advice. In addition, the special includes a trail map and discount coupon for  Pleasant Valley, which is right in Lenox Massachusetts. It’s a Mass Audubon wildlife refuge, unsurpassed for groomed wooded trails and a superb view at the top of Lenox Mountain.  We’ll also include water bottles and healthy snacks.  See our Packages page at www.brookfarm.com/packages.html.

There’s always something to do in the Berkshires.  Guests of Brook Farm Inn, in Lenox Massachusetts, frequently enjoy a drink, or a meal, or just dessert, at one of the local night spots.  We recommend the Castle Street Cafe for live music. This weekend they’re featuring Dooley Austin on Friday, March 20, and Peg & Bill Delaney on Saturday, March 21st. 

There’s also the Lion’s Den, in the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, where top local performers can be see and heard nightly.

Here’s our recommendation for enjoying the Tanglewood concerts twice as much — sign up for Jeremy Yudkin’s  Summer Music Seminars!  Even though we still have snow on the ground, it’s not too early to register.  We’ve attended his lectures, and we agree with these testimonials:

“The best teacher on any subject I’ve ever had!”

“I’ll never listen to music the same way again.”

“He makes the Tanglewood concerts truly come alive!”

Jeremy Yudkin, Professor of Music at Boston and Oxford Universities, and Lecturer at Tanglewood since 1983, is a brilliant and entertaining presenter. Lectures are given on Friday and Saturday afternoons, in anticipation of the weekend’s concerts.

All lectures take place in the Welles Gallery of the Lenox Library, situated in the middle of Lenox, Massachusetts, at 18 Main Street.  It’s a five-minute walk from Brook Farm Inn. Musical expertise is definitely not required, and registration entitles you to discounts on Tanglewood tickets.

More information is at Jeremy’s website www.summermusicseminars.org. Please tell him you were referred by Brook Farm Inn!

Tea and Talk, a program at Close Encounters With Music is one we don’t intend to miss.  It’s on Sunday, March 15 in Lenox, within walking distance of Brook Farm Inn.  Award-winning composer Judith Lang Zaimont, recipient of National Endowments and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, mixes piano performance with her skills as a raconteuse at the Lenox Athenaeum, Winthrop Estate, 101 Yokun Avenue, Lenox, Massachusetts.  $25 admission includes light refreshments.

This installment of Conversations With… is timed to celebrate International Womens Day and Festival of the Arts 2009, which we’ve mentioned in earlier blog posts. and will touch on the phenomenon of the Salon and how the women who ran them opened up the possibility of intellectual discourse during an otherwise repressive era in Prussia. It features demonstrations on the piano of Zaimont’s own works and those of Fanny Mendelssohn, composed in spite of the discouragement she received from her family and society.
For reservations, call 800/843-0778 or www.cewm.org

There is poetry here!  We announced a while ago that Brook Farm Inn, Lenox Massachusetts, will have a wonderful celebration of Millay’s poetry, on May 16th.  We hope many guests will stay with us that weekend.  Those who can’t stay over are still invited to attend the event.  We now have more information, so here’s the full press release!

“The Four Seasons of Edna St. Vincent Millay” at Brook Farm Inn

 The public is invited to celebrate the life and works of Edna St. Vincent Millay, at an event on Saturday, May 16, 2009, at 3:00 PM.  At Brook Farm Inn, in Lenox Massachusetts, Peter Bergman, Executive Director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop, will present a program entitled “The Four Seasons of Edna St. Vincent Millay.”   The program will begin with an unknown, 1920’s work, and will end with Millay’s final published piece.  And there will be surprises!  “Mr. Bergman’s readings are mesmerizing, and his knowledge of Millay is unsurpassed,” said Linda Halpern of Brook Farm Inn who attended Bergman’s three-part course on Millay at the Lenox Library in 2008.

The Millay Society is responsible for the poet’s archives and papers, and for the preservation of Steepletop, her home in Austerlitz, NY.  In order to help the Society reach its goal of restoring this site and opening it to the public on a regular basis, a contribution of $20 per person is requested.  Refreshments will be served.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, in 1923, and was local resident from 1925 until her death in 1950. Considered one the truly great American creative artists, she pioneered in radio and recordings, began publishing her poetry while still a teenager and at the age of 20 was acclaimed nationally for her lengthy poem, “Renascence.” During her years in the Berkshires she completed the commissioned libretto for an American opera for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, published seven volumes of poetry and wrote the radio play, “The Murder of Lidice,” which polarized Americans in 1942 and helped to turn the tide of World War II.

Peter Bergman, a long-time resident in Berkshire County, is a noted author and theatrical director in addition to his work for the Millay Society. His company, Berkshire Concert Artists, has represented many singers, musicians, directors, librettists and designers and also produced ten original plays based on historical figures in the Berkshires, produced in historic houses. His most recent play, “The Lynch Bride” is part of the Berkshire Fools Festival and presented in the historic First Congregational Church on Park Square in Pittsfield.

Advance reservations for seats for this program are recommended as seating is limited.  To reserve, contact Linda and Phil Halpern, innkeepers, at Brook Farm Inn, 15 Hawthorne Street, Lenox, MA, 800-285-7638 (POET), www.brookfarm.com.  Brook Farm Inn, located in the heart of the Berkshires, is known for hosting poetry readings, and welcomes room reservations for the weekend of this exciting program.  Brook Farm Inn will make the $20 contribution on behalf of overnight guests.

“The Four Seasons of Edna St. Vincent Millay” at Brook Farm Inn

The public is invited to celebrate the life and works of Edna St. Vincent Millay, at an event on Saturday, May 16, 2009, at 3:00 PM.  At Brook Farm Inn, in Lenox Massachusetts, Peter Bergman, Executive Director of the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society at Steepletop, will present a program entitled “The Four Seasons of Edna St. Vincent Millay.”   The program will begin with an unknown, 1920’s work, and will end with Millay’s final published piece.  And there will be surprises!  “Mr. Bergman’s readings are mesmerizing, and his knowledge of Millay is unsurpassed,” said Linda Halpern of Brook Farm Inn who attended Bergman’s three-part course on Millay at the Lenox Library in 2008.

The Millay Society is responsible for the poet’s archives and papers, and for the preservation of Steepletop, her home in Austerlitz, NY.  In order to help the Society reach its goal of restoring this site and opening it to the public on a regular basis, a contribution of $20 per person is requested.  Refreshments will be served.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, in 1923, and was local resident from 1925 until her death in 1950. Considered one the truly great American creative artists, she pioneered in radio and recordings, began publishing her poetry while still a teenager and at the age of 20 was acclaimed nationally for her lengthy poem, “Renascence.” During her years in the Berkshires she completed the commissioned libretto for an American opera for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, published seven volumes of poetry and wrote the radio play, “The Murder of Lidice,” which polarized Americans in 1942 and helped to turn the tide of World War II.

Peter Bergman, a long-time resident in Berkshire County, is a noted author and theatrical director in addition to his work for the Millay Society. His company, Berkshire Concert Artists, has represented many singers, musicians, directors, librettists and designers and also produced ten original plays based on historical figures in the Berkshires, produced in historic houses. His most recent play, “The Lynch Bride” is part of the Berkshire Fools Festival and presented in the historic First Congregational Church on Park Square in Pittsfield.

Advance reservations for seats for this program are recommended as seating is limited.  To reserve, contact Linda and Phil Halpern, innkeepers, at Brook Farm Inn, 15 Hawthorne Street, Lenox, MA, 800-285-7638 (POET), www.brookfarm.com.  Brook Farm Inn, located in the heart of the Berkshires, is known for hosting poetry readings, and welcomes room reservations for the weekend of this exciting program.  Brook Farm Inn will make the $20 contribution on behalf of overnight guests.

If you’re like most of our newer customers, you’ve probably found Brook Farm Inn by searching the web.  We’re listed on a number of helpful, online bed & breakfast directories.  We recently updated our listing, for instance, on www.ibbp.com, which stands for International Bed & Breakfast Pages.  We have some of our specials listed there, including the current March Museum Madness!  Check it out.

Shakespeare & Co.,  in Lenox, right around the corner from Brook Farm Inn, has announced its program for the ‘09 season.  Wow! It will be the longest season ever — May 27 through March 14, 2010.  There are two theaters on the Shakespeare campus, plus the outdoor theater, and the program has something for everyone. Hamlet, Othello, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet.  Then there are contemporary plays:  Shirley Valentine, Golda’s Balcony and more.  We can’t wait to take our grandchildren to “Toad of Toad Hall” at the Outdoor Bankside Festival. Go to the website www.shakespeare.org for  full information and tickets.