Edith Wharton Restoration

CONTACT:

The Mount, 2 Plunkett Street, Box 974
Lenox, MA 01240
(413) 637-1899
www.edithwharton.org

Stephanie Copeland, President

DESCRIPTION:

Only 5% of National Historic Landmarks are dedicated to women, and The Mount is one of them honoring Edith Wharton (1862-1937), author of The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and The House of Mirth. She wrote 40 books in 40 years, was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was also an authority on domestic architecture and horticulture. Wharton designed and built The Mount in 1901-2, based on the precepts of her pioneering book, The Decoration of Houses (1897, co-authored with Ogden Codman, Jr.), and elaborating its formal gardens as in her later work, Italian Villas and Their Gardens. After her death in 1937 The Mount deteriorated and its gardens were overgrown, as for 35 years it was a girls school dormitory. In 1980 Edith Wharton Restoration was created to preserve and restore The Mount, and the property was purchased with help from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Since 1999, The Mount “has had a miraculous transformation”: a major Save America’s Treasures federal grant led to the centennial re-opening of the estate in 2002; visitation has tripled to nearly 30,000, and earned income has increased six-fold. New literary programs were launched in 2004. In 2005 the magnificent flower gardens were restored, and Edith Wharton’s personal library of 2,600 volumes was acquired. Further evidence of excellence: the White House has given them one of only four Presidential Awards.

(1999: CULTURE: Education: Informal: Historic Preservation)