56 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 15 2009
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GreatBarrington
The Bard College at Simon’s Rock campus
lends Great Barrington a college-town feel
and a progressive vibe; there are lots of bou-
tiques, galleries, and ethnic restaurants. The
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center offers live
performances year-round.
Lenox
Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra, is the crown jewel
of Lenox. There’s also the Pleasant Valley
Wildlife Sanctuary, which comprises seven
miles of trails through meadows, through
wetlands, and through the hardwood forests
along the slope ofLenoxMountain.
NorthAdams
North Adams is home to theMassachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest
contemporary-art museum in the country,
which also has a full performing-arts sched-
ule encompassing theater, music, and dance.
Mount Greylock— at 3,491 feet, the state’s
highest peak— is locatedhere.
Eachof the towns inBerkshireCounty,Massachusetts, has
somethingunique tooffer.Hereare someof thehighlights.
APlace forEveryPleasure
Pittsfield
The Colonial Theatre here was recently re-
stored to its original gilded-age glory. It now
offers theater performances, films, and live
music, including the Pittsfield City Jazz Fes-
tival. The nearbyBerkshireMuseum features
exhibits on art, history, and thenaturalworld.
Stockbridge
Though small in size, Stockbridge boasts
a great deal of cultural attractions, from the
Berkshire Theatre Festival to the Berkshire
Botanical Garden. Don’t miss the Norman
Rockwell Museum, which holds the largest
collection anywhere of Rockwell’s works, in-
cluding750paintingsanddrawingsand150,000
photographs, letters, and other memorabilia.
Williamstown
This town is best known for the Williams-
town Theatre Festival, which presents more
than 200 summer performances annually.
Don’tmiss a visit to the Sterling andFrancine
Clark Art Institute, a museum and leading
art-history research facility.
[
andcontinuing
]
up through thepresentday,
I compared it with the rest of theworld and
couldn’tfindanyplaceelsewhere the success
was this tremendous in proportion to the
population.”
Stuart Chase, executive director of the
Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, agrees that
the artistic concentration in the area is un-
common. “There’s tremendous creativity
here,” he says. “It’s a beautiful region with
vast cultural resources.”
Thecombinationofnatureandculture isa
largepartoftheBerkshires’charm.Withinthe
HudsonRiverSchool–stylesetting liesa trove
of artistic institutionsand famous landmarks
that’s comparable to anymajormetropolis’s.
There’s the Sterling and Francine Clark Art
Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts,
whichshowcases itsnamesakes’ extensivecol-
lection of art while also offering a slew of re-
search and academic programs. Shakespeare
&Company and the Barrington Stage Com-
pany are two nationally recognized theater
companies located inBerkshireCounty.More
than 300 performances of various styles of
dance are showcased annually at the Jacob’s
PillowDanceFestival,whichhasbeenheld in
So, what is it about this fabled region that
hasmade it suchabeehive for creative souls?
In addition to the area’s inspiring natural
beauty, its convenient geographic location
just 130 miles from Boston and 150 miles
fromNewYorkCitymakes it an easy escape
from either of thosemetropolises. But others
say there’smore to theattraction than simple
proximity. Early Native Americans revered
theBerkshires because they felt the landhad
sacred energy. Some locals believe the land’s
mystical properties come from the underly-
ingbedrockof granite andquartzite. Charles
Flint, anartsandantiquesdealerwho lives in
the townof Lenox,Massachusetts, consulted
with a geologist to satisfy his own curiosity
about what’s behind— or perhapsmore ac-
curately,
beneath
— the Berkshires’ renown.
The geologist confirmed to Flint the exis-
tence of themineral-richbedrock, a geologi-
cal remnant of molten temperatures caused
by tectonic shiftingmillions of years ago.
“I’m not necessarily a believer that this is
all because of quartzite and granite,” Flint
says. “But when I realized all the accom-
plished, famous people who have lived here,
startingwithMelville andSusanB. Anthony
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