Elm Court: The Berkshires' Grandest Gilded Age Estate

If the Berkshires in the late eighteen hundreds felt like a second Newport for New York's wealthiest families, Elm Court was their largest statement. This estate straddles the town line between Lenox and Stockbridge, and at one hundred six rooms it remains the largest shingled house ever built in the United States.

The story begins with Emily Vanderbilt, daughter of railroad tycoon William Henry Vanderbilt, and her husband William D. Sloane, a furniture magnate. When they began planning the house in eighteen eighty-five, the intentions were modest, at least by Vanderbilt standards. Then Emily's father died and left each of his eight children ten million dollars. The plans changed.

The architectural firm Peabody and Stearns designed the main house, and Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, laid out the eighty-nine-acre grounds. The resulting estate was not just a summer home but a social engine. Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and Amelia Earhart all passed through.

Through the years around the First World War, Elm Court remained one of the Berkshires' premier social settings, drawing prominent guests from politics, business, and the arts.

The family ran it as an inn for a time after World War Two, then closed it in nineteen fifty-nine, leaving the property to decay for forty years. Restoration efforts have continued into the twenty-first century under various ownership, though the estate has repeatedly resisted easy revival.

It sits today straddling two towns and two centuries, the most extravagant reminder of a Berkshires summer season that will not return.