Jenny Donelan

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If you know Edith Wharton only as the author of Gilded Age novels such as The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, you may be surprised to learn that she is also an important figure in the history of American interior design and landscaping. Wharton authored two nonfiction works considered classics in their own right: The Decoration of Houses (co-written with architect Ogden Codman) and Italian Villas and Their Gardens. The former was in fact Wharton’s first published book; in it she and Codman espoused principles of proportion, symmetry and simplicity, partly in reaction to the fashions of the times—rooms filled to overflowing with eclectic bric-a-brac, textures and fabric. The Decoration of Houses, published in 1898, is considered a foundational text of modern interior design, and is still in print today.

You can see many of Wharton’s design principles realized at The Mount, the country estate she built for herself in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1902. This 49.5-acre Berkshire residence, which is open to the public May through October, demonstrates the writer’s affinity for beauty, symmetry, proportion and ideal relationships between house and garden, building and nature. The Mount offers a unique opportunity not only to learn more about the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, designer and humanitarian who created it, but also to view an upscale, turn-of-the-century home much as it would have appeared to Wharton and her contemporaries.

Visiting The Mount

Wharton was also a successful writer of nonfiction, including Italian Villas and Their Gardens. Many of the principles of simplicity and symmetry she espoused can be seen in the layout of the formal gardens at The Mount.

Upon seeing the property for the first time, most visitors have a series of similar reactions, according to The Mount’s vice president, Susan Wissler. As they walk toward the house along a drive lined with sugar maples and carpeted by a blend of purple-flowering myrtle and ferns, “It sets the stage for something rather serene,” says Susan. “Then you come around the bend and see this rather grand and imposing house.” Yet another reversal is in store once you’re inside: The house ceases to intimidate and instead conveys a sense of intimacy and comfort. “I think that’s the largest surprise for people,” notes Susan, “how livable the house is. It’s because of the proportions.” Even though it’s a huge house by any era’s standards, its rooms, fixtures and landscaping all harmonize with each other to convey a rare sense of beauty and calm.

Modest though The Mount was compared to some of the country “cottages” built by Wharton’s contemporaries, a sixteen-thousand-square-foot, forty-two-room, neoclassic house built on a hillside overlooking terraced gardens, nearby Laurel Lake and the Berkshire hills, is still a sight to see. The white house with its rows of green-shuttered windows has a wide gravel forecourt that welcomes visitors arriving from the entrance drive. In back, facing the gardens, a Palladian staircase descends from the terrace to gravel walks and flights of steps that lead to the “lime walk” (lined with linden trees) and the gardens. Wharton sought to extend the house into the landscape—and vice versa. In front, for example, the ground floor entrance hall is designed to resemble a natural grotto, with plasterwork simulating dripping water. It thus serves as a transitional space between outside and in.

Inside and out of The Mount

Landscaping features at The Mount include a rustic-looking Italianate garden, complete with rock pile fountain and stone walls.

Inside the house, most of the rooms have now been restored to a state like their original appearance. Numerous photographs and notes have proved helpful in this regard. Some areas, such as the dining room and Wharton’s drawing room, have been decorated by commercial interior designers as if they had been given commissions by Wharton today. In other cases, the staff is painstakingly restoring particular rooms according to records and photographs. Fragments of wallpaper, for example, have been found in bedrooms, bathrooms and service spaces, and some is being restored and also reproduced. (Interestingly, notes The Mount’s literature, though the wallpaper definitely dates to the period of Wharton’s residency, wallpaper was something she professed to disapprove of.) Edith Wharton Restoration also continues to search for pieces that might have belonged to Wharton, or furniture from the periods—Louis XV and XVI—to which she was partial.

The gardens have recently been restored and will be in full bloom this season. The landscaping includes an Italian-style garden with fieldstone walls, a rock pile fountain and rustic pergola. Four L-shaped flowerbeds were replanted last summer with nearly 3,000 perennials and annuals, among them rosy tulips, blue forget-me-nots, hollyhocks, delphiniums, phlox, heliotrope, snapdragons as well as many others.

Besides the house and garden tours offered at The Mount, visitors can dine on light French-inspired cuisine in the Terrace Café and visit the bookstore, which features not only books by and about Wharton but publications on architecture, interior design and gardening. The Mount also has ongoing events such as poetry readings and special exhibits that shed light on Wharton’s life and time. One recent exhibit, Lily’s Downfall, used Gilded Age clothing (on loan from the Museum of the City of New York) to depict key scenes from the life of Lily Bart, the main character from The House of Mirth. In May The Mount hosted a conference on the significance of Wharton’s theories to the history and development of the American garden.

When asked whether most visitors know of Wharton other than as a novelist, Susan answers, “They are completely surprised that she was such a force of authority in interior design and landscaping.” In fact, some people aren’t aware of her as an author at all, or if they are, their feelings may be negative. “Some remember being forced to read Ethan Frome in high school,” she adds.

But The Mount exerts an appeal of its own: “I think people are drawn in by the relationship between the house and the gardens,” says Susan. Many leave wanting to know more about Wharton—such is the power of good design.

Jenny Donelan is a freelance writer who lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire.