LENOX, Mass. — Local historian and author, Cornelia Brooke Gilder, will tell give a talk about Margaret Emerson Vanderbilt, who rented Ventfort Hall during the First World War. 

 

Gilder will speak on Saturday, Nov. 16 at 3:30 pm. Her lecture will be followed by a Victorian tea.

 

Using photos from private albums, Gilder will illuminate Margaret Vanderbilt's long and multi-faceted life from a privileged society hostess to a capable Red Cross administrator. Mrs. Vanderbilt's connection to Ventfort Hall was the result of her desire to establish a country home in Lenox for her two little boys after her husband, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, perished tragically in the sinking of the ocean liner The Lusitania in May 1915. While living at Ventfort Hall she oversaw the construction of one of Lenox's last big “cottages” Holmwood (now known as Foxhollow) on a spectacular site next to her husband's cousins, the Fields, at High Lawn.

 

Cornelia Brooke Gilder has co-authored with Richard S. Jackson, Jr., Houses of the Berkshires, 1870 – 1930, named an honor book by Historic New England; authored Edith Wharton's Lenox; co-authored with Julia Conklin Peters Hawthorne's Lenox: The Tanglewood Circle, and with Joan Olshansky, A History of Ventfort Hall.

 

Tickets are $40 for members and with advance reservations, $45 on the day of the event, and $22 for students 22 and under. The ticket price includes access to Ventfort Hall on the day of the event. Reservations are highly encouraged as seating is limited, with walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations, visit https://gildedage.org/pages/calendar or call (413) 637-3206. Note that all tickets are non-refundable and non-exchangeable.