The BerkshireWeb and Cottage Press, Inc. are proud to present The Berkshire Cottages - A Vanishing Era online. For your first taste of what secrets lie between this treasure’s covers we invite you to take a nostalgic trip to Bellefontaine, an American castle that today quarters the Lenox based, internationally renowned resort Canyon Ranch.
For over a decade travelers, collectors and Berkshire residents have made this book a staple part of their literary diet. The Innkeepers of Berkshire County were once asked the question, “When people check out of your establishment, what is the most common item they leave with that wasn’t their's to take?” Edging out towels... The Berkshire Cottages book!”
From the year 1880 through 1920, the era we refer to today as America’s Guilded Age was unfolding before this great nation's eyes. In these final years before the advent of the income tax, America’s wealthiest capitalists and industrialists such as William Henry Vanderbilt (who earned $10,000 a minute) made a sport out of who could build the grandest and greatest estate the fastest. These men spent their fortunes with the same gusto it was earned. They built these palaces in Bar Harbor, Maine, Newport, Rhode Island and right here in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. The town of Lenox was dubbed “Queen of Guilded Age resorts.”
Carole Owens brings the upstairs/downstairs world of the Berkshire Cottage to life in two books, The Berkshire Cottages - A Vanishing Era and Bellefontaine. We hope you enjoy the chapters we publish here on the BerkshireWeb and encourage you to add one or both of these Berkshire classics to your bookshelf with our easy to use order form. They make a great gift as well.
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