Wheatleigh Going Up for Sale

01:25PM / Monday, February 05, 2024Print Story | Email Story

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — One of the county's most exclusive hotels is not completely closing this Valentine's Day.

But the owners of Wheatleigh, L. Linfield and Susan Simon, did confirm to The Berkshire Eagle that they will on putting the 1893 Italian-style villa up for sale later this year.

It will close as a hotel but will be open for private rentals and for weddings and events that were booked through the summer.

iBerkshires and other media posted an announcement made Monday on the hotel's Facebook page:

"It is with great sadness, we bid you all a fond farewell. The Wheatleigh ownership has made the difficult decision to close the property, and put it up for sale as a private residence. Our last day of operation will be February 14th. We thank you all for sharing your lives with us, and we wish you all the very best as we usher in a new chapter for the house we all love."

The Eagle reported Wednesday that the post was a hoax by "an unhappy former employee." The newspaper reported that the Simons are seeking to options for the hotel's future and that the company that was managing it the last few years is no longer involved.

Banking and railroad magnate Henry H. Cook built the Berkshire cottage as a summer home. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and, at one point, was designated five stars by Forbes. It is listed on the Leading Hotels of the World website. It passed out of the Cook family and for a short time was a jazz and folk music school and resort, connected to the Music Inn, and then as a summer hotel.

The Linfords purchased the property in 1983 as Su Lin Inc. It was refurbished in the early 1990s and renovated it in 2002. It's assessed at about $4 million.

It has 19 rooms and suites on 22 acres designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Within walking distance of Tanglewood, the hotel has been a frequent stop for notable celebrities over the years. It is known for its fine dining, wine cellar and luxuriously appointed accommodations.

Updated on Feb. 7, 2024; 2 p.m.

Tags: motels, hotels,

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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