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The Edith Wharton Restoration was founded in 1980, and was established to bring back the estate to its former grandeur reflecting the life, times, art and ideas of Edith Wharton. The restoration is unique, in that it is being effected in an almost "reverse engineered" fashion, using blueprints and Wharton’s own extensive notes and documentation, together with the efforts of restoration technology specialists and architectural historians, combining to form a project free from romantic whimsy or uninformed revisionism. If to visit The Mount is to visit Wharton herself, then a careful preservation and restoration is crucial for an accurate assessment of the woman and her work. At the same time, this "work in progress" is living and breathing, housing the renowned troupe of Shakespeare and Company, whose summer performances using The Mount itself as a stage, have brought the Bard and Wharton to life for countless thousands.
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The Mount/Edith Wharton Restoration, Inc.
dith Wharton was a passionate student of "the complex art of
civilized
living." She was the first woman to ever be awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was a formidable intellect, artist, and social
historian. It is perhaps no surprise that her home and gardens, like
Jefferson’s Monticello, reflect so strongly the creator’s distinct
persona. Among her more than 20 novels are such masterpieces as The
House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, Disintegration, Summer, and The Custom of
the Country. The award of the Pulitzer in 1921, her much-decorated
humanitarian work during World War I and the first honorary degree from
Yale ever awarded a female all assured her place in American letters,
but it is The Mount which continues to maintain a living presence of
this artist. Completed in 1902, it was designed and built by Wharton
and modeled on Christopher Wren’s Belton House in Lincolnshire England,
and included manifestations and innovations associated with her
influential non-fiction works, The Decoration of Houses and Italian
Villas and Their Gardens. 
Collaborating with architects and landscapers,
she created a living space and garden which reflected both the earthy
character of the New England landscape and the harmonic order and
symmetry of classical design. Some have described The Mount as Wharton’s
"autobiography." She was among the first people in the area to own a
motorcar, and often spent the dazzling Berkshire autumn afternoons
tooling around in her flivver with the amused Henry James. She owned The
Mount until 1911, and it eventually became a dormitory for Foxhollow
School for Girls. In 1971, the house, outbuilding and grounds were
designated as a National Historic Landmark. 