Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Ventfort Hall
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| Location | 104 Walker St Lenox, Massachusetts |
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| Built | 1891-1893 |
| Architect | Rotch & Tilden |
| Architectural style | Jacobean Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 93000055 |
| Added to NRHP | March 5, 1993 |
Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum is a beautiful old house in Lenox, Massachusetts. It's a special type of building called Jacobean style. Today, it's also a museum! You can visit to see how people lived during a time called the Gilded Age. This was a period in the late 1800s when America changed a lot. The mansion is so important that it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
History of Ventfort Hall
Ventfort Hall was built in 1893. It was made for a couple named George and Sarah Morgan. Sarah was the sister of a very famous banker, J. P. Morgan. The house was designed by architects Rotch & Tilden.
The outside of the house is made of brick with brownstone details. It has about 50 rooms inside! This includes 9 main bedrooms and 10 bedrooms for servants. There are also 7 bathrooms and 17 fireplaces. The house was built on a huge garden that was 26 acres big. Now, it's a bit smaller, about 11.7 acres.
Before Ventfort Hall was built, a smaller house stood on the land. This house belonged to the Haggerty family. It was called Vent Fort. A Civil War hero, Robert Gould Shaw, spent his honeymoon there. He was a colonel in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. His wife, Annie Kneeland Haggerty, later moved to Europe. She only returned to Vent Fort for her last two summers. She rented the house from the Morgan family.
After the Morgans passed away, the house was rented for a few years. Then, in 1925, it was bought by W. Roscoe and Mary Minturn Bonsal. They sold the house in 1945. After that, Ventfort Hall was used for many different things. It was a dorm for music students from Tanglewood. It was also a summer hotel and a ballet camp. Later, it became community housing for a religious group.
In 1991, a company wanted to tear down the building. Over the next few years, the house got very damaged. Parts of the roof fell in, and wood panels were taken from the walls. But in June 1997, a group called the Ventfort Hall Association saved it! This non-profit group has been fixing the damage. They are also working to create a national museum about the Gilded Age inside the mansion.
Ventfort Hall in The Cider House Rules
Soon after the Ventfort Hall Association bought the house, it became famous! The outside of the building was used in a movie. It was the orphanage called St. Cloud's in the 1999 film The Cider House Rules. This movie even won an Academy Award!
The director, Lasse Hallstrom, wanted a wooden building for the orphanage. But the location managers, Charlie Harrington and Mark Fitzgerald, showed him pictures of Ventfort Hall. They loved the mansion. Even though only the outside was planned for filming, some scenes were shot inside. You can see the amazing staircase in the Great Hall in the movie. All other inside scenes for the film were shot in Northampton.
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