The Mount Carmel Retreat Center, a 700-acre property on Oblong Road in Williamstown that once belonged to Nobel Prize-winning author Sinclair H. Lewis, is for sale for $2.2 million.
The property has been owned by the Carmelite Fathers of the New York Province since 1952, when it was purchased as a novitiate. But the novitiate, a training center for young men interested in the Carmelite life, long ago moved to Middletown, N.Y., and the South Williamstown property has been used in recent years primarily as a retreat center.
The 1916 Georgian revival mansion was owned by Lewis from 1946 to 1952. The granite posts at the entrance still proclaim the property as Thorvale, a name referring to the thunder that resonates through the valley.
The Rev. Michael Driscoll, the prior provincial of the Carmelites of New York Province of St. Elias, reached by telephone yesterday, said the order is selling the property to concentrate its resources on its missions in Trinidad and Vietnam.
The property is listed for sale with real estate broker Harsch Associates.
Driscoll said the sale is prompted by dwindling personnel, and the property’s comparative remoteness from Long Island where many retreat participants live.
“The remoteness, while ideal for Carmelite life, is a little too remote for lay people to go there on retreats in abundance,†said Driscoll.
“We did an awful lot of good in a certain area at a certain time, and then we have to move on,†said Driscoll. “In 50 years we’ve touched a lot of people in the Berkshire area, but now we have to move on. And Trinidad and Vietnam are where we’re committed to establishing our communities.â€
At one time, the order had perhaps 30 novices and professed students at the center.
“We need more personnel to run the retreat center the way we used to, and we don’t have that,†he said.
The Rev. Maurice Cummings has been at the center, mostly alone with the weekly assistance of a Carmelite father from Troy, N.Y., for the past two or three years, said Driscoll.
“Money that we would have to put into upgrading the property needs to go into the education of seminarians in Trinidad and Vietnam,†he said.
Driscoll said the Carmelite order, while growing slowly in the United States and Western Europe, is “growing tremendously in Third World Countries.â€
“The Prior General has asked every province to accept a mission, and some have more than one. The Chicago Province, for example, has missions in Peru and Mexico.
Our community is growing in mission lands.â€
“Our province has dwindling numbers, and selling (the center) would help us in our commitment to two missions,†he said.
“Something has to give, and maybe it’s the retreat center,†said Driscoll.
“The other retreat houses will take up the slack.â€
The decision to sell was reached with regret, said Driscoll, agreeing that it was part of a pattern in the Roman Catholic Church in North America, where parish churches and parochial schools have been put on the market, to the consternation of many who had cherished them.
“I spent three years there, and if it is sold I will miss it,†said Driscoll. “Many of our priests feel close to that place, and I think we all love it. We’re going to find it hard. It’s like breaking up the old homestead.â€
The property is advertised for sale in today’s issue of The Advocate by Harsch Associates.
Broker Paul Harsch said the property, which overlooks spectacular views, has 905 feet of frontage along Oblong Road, its elevation rising from 1,000 feet at the road to 2,800 feet at the Taconic ridge.
The Taconic Crest Trail cuts through the upper corner of the property.
The property could possibly be developed through creating a minor way subdivision, but the town’s upland building restrictions reduce the amount of building it could support. According to that bylaw, building between 1,150 and 1,300 feet — designated as Rural Residence 1 — requires more area and additional frontage, and no building at all is allowed above 1,300 feet, designated a conservation overlay district.
Coincidentally, $2.2 million is the same price paid for Cricket Creek Farm, an extensive property also on Oblong Road, but on its south end, by the Sabot family.
The Georgian revival house has 6,600 square feet; the 1955 building, 20,000 square feet, with dormitory-style rooms, an indoor gymnasium and a chapel.
Leslie Reed-Evans, executive director of the Williamstown Rural Lands Foundation, said “the Taconic Range is important ecologically. There has been an ongoing effort — particularly since the 1993 compact between Massachusetts and New York — to protect as much of the ridge as possible. The Carmelites property is an integral piece because it is adjacent to Berlin Mountain. The Rural Lands Foundation has worked with the state Department of Environmental Management to protect other parcels along the Taconic Crest, including the former Phelps Farm and land in Kidder Hollow.â€
Part of the property was settled first in 1768, when William Torrey, a shoemaker from Middletown, Conn., and his brother John, settled across from one another on Oblong Road, but by the early 20th century the property had passed out of the Torrey family, whose name continues in Torrey Woods Road.
Lewis, the notoriously difficult novelist, spent only a few years at Thorvale, but those years were marked by alcoholism, illness, and acrimony, the latter involving both a tenant farmer family on the property, and the Williams College English department whose members apparently failed to welcome the author with the enthusiasm he felt he merited, according to a 1988 memoir by Ida L. Compton. He died in Rome in 1951.
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Winter Storm Warning Issued for Berkshires
Another snowstorm is expected to move through the region overnight on Friday, bringing 5 to 8 inches of snow. This is updated from Thursday's winter weather advisory.
The National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y., has posted a winter storm warning for all of Berkshire County and parts of eastern New York State beginning Friday at 4 p.m. through Saturday at 1 p.m.
The region could see heavy to moderate snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour overnight, tapering off Saturday morning to flurries.
Drivers should exercise caution on Friday night and Saturday morning, as travel conditions may be hazardous.
Saturday night should be clear and calm, but warming temperatures means freezing rain Sunday night and rain through Monday with highs in the 40s. The forecast isn't much better through the week as temperatures dip back into the teens with New Year's Eve looking cloudy and frigid.
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