Tappan House Restoration lecture at Ventfort Hall
LENOX, Mass. - At the heart of the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox is the 19th century summer home of the Tappan family, donated to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1937.Architect Pamela W. Hawkes FAIA will present the scope of “A House for Culture: Restoring Tanglewood’s Tappan House” at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum. Her visual presentation will take place on Wednesday, August 19, at 4:00 pm, followed by a Victorian Tea. The lecture is part of Ventfort Hall’s 2009 Summer Lecture Series.
Tappan House was designed for William and Caroline Tappan by John Hubbard Sturgis in 1865, and reflects the couple’s artistic tastes and cosmopolitan lifestyle. Since the 1940s, such composers and musicians as Leonard Bernstein and John Williams have occupied studios there; the mansion has also served as the Music Center’s administrative headquarters and visitor center.
This past winter, the BSO implemented the first phase of restoration and renovation of Tappan House. Victorian details that had been suppressed by modernist architects Eliel and Eero Saarinen in the 1940s and 1950s have been retrieved and historic materials renewed. Hawkes will outline the research and design efforts related to architectural details, paint colors and roofing, including historic photos, paint analysis and review of precedents, as well as future plans for interior renovations and sustainability.
Hawkes is a member of the Boston firm, Ann Beha Architects. The speaker takes a particular interest in new interpretations of historic sites for contemporary lives. She has directed by wide variety of award-winning preservation and design projects including the restoration of the McLellan House and Sweat Galleries at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine and restoration of the Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, New York, both winners of Honor Awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
This program is supported in part by grants from the Alford-Egremont Cultural Council, the Richmond Cultural Council, the Sandisfield Cultural Council, the Sheffield Cultural Council and the West Stockbridge Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Reservations for this lecture may be made by calling Ventfort Hall at 413-637-3206. Tickets are $15 per person for nonmembers and $12 for members. The historical 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-around 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.
