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Beverly Bridger, will give a visual presentation at Ventfort Hall01:25PM / Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Margaret Emerson McKim Vanderbilt Baker Amory Emerson, one of the great social leaders of her time, was for several decades the devoted owner of the legendary Great Camp Sagamore in upstate New York. Beverly Bridger, Executive Director of Sagamore, will give a visual presentation at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum titled “Sagamore: Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Fabled Adirondack Retreat”. Bridger’s talk is slated for Saturday, April 18, at 4:00pm, followed by a meet-the-author Victorian Tea. She will also be available to sign copies of her book Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Sagamore.
Built in the late 1890s, Great Camp Sagamore was a 1,526-acre wooded estate that included 27 rustic buildings purchased by Margaret’s second husband, Alfred Gwynn Vanderbilt, Sr., considered the wealthiest young man in America at that time. He was to die heroically with the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Margaret continued to maintain Sagamore, visiting it every year for the next 39 years with her children and grandchildren.
A native of Baltimore who married five times, Margaret was the daughter of Isaac Emerson, the inventor of Bromo-Seltzer. When Mrs. William Astor died, the society columnists elected Margaret her successor as the leader of New York society. Later she was to head the Red Cross in the Pacific during World War II.
Coincidently, there is a Lenox connection with Margaret. Soon after her husband’s death, she rented Ventfort Hall with her two small sons from the Morgan family for a few years. She added more bathrooms to the 35-room mansion, modernized the electricity and had repairs made to the greenhouses. She then bought Erskine Park, the Lenox estate of George Westinghouse, demolishing it for her own house Holmwood, now known as Foxhollow. It was at Holmwood that she summered with her new husband, Raymond T. Baker.
Regarding Sagamore, in 1954 Margaret gave the estate to Syracuse University, which during the next 20 years logged the land, sold the furnishings and sold all but 7.7 acres to the state as a forest preserve. What was left was a dilapidated white elephant in serious need of repair. Sagamore was saved at the 11th hour by the Preservation League of New York State. They in turn asked the State Department of Environmental Conservation to put the property up to bid to not-for-profit organizations.
Through this process the Sagamore Institute of the Adirondacks was formed. In 1983, 10 acres were added to the 7.7 acres, reuniting all the original 27 buildings. It is now a National Historic Landmark and has received the Save America’s Treasures Award.
Ms. Bridger has been at Sagamore for 20 years, overseeing a major historic preservation project. Under her leadership, the activities program has grown to include grandparents’ and grandchildren’s camp weekends, numerous elderhostels, overnight accommodations and guided walking tours. Her lecture will be based on her book and will also include a showing of “It Was Like Brigadoon”, a DVD narrated by Alfred Gwynn Vanderbilt, Jr.
Admission to the lecture and the Victorian Tea is $15 for nonmembers and $12 for members. Reservations are advised by calling Ventfort Hall at 413-637-3206. The historic mansion is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.
An Official Project of Save America’s Treasures, Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum offers tours of the historic mansion, as well as lectures, concerts, teas, theater and other programs. This elegant Elizabethan-revival Berkshire “cottage,” listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental. Built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan (sister of the financier, J. P. Morgan), Ventfort Hall has undergone substantial restoration, which continues. |
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