Lenox
Lenox,
town (1990 pop. 5,069), Berkshire co., W Mass., in the Berkshire Mts., 7 mi (11 km) south of Pittsfield. It is primarily a summer resort. The Tanglewood Music FestivalTanglewood Music Festival,formerly the Berkshire Festival (until 1984), summer music festival held since 1937 at "Tanglewood," a former estate in the adjoining towns of Stockbridge and Lenox, Mass. The Berkshire Festival was begun in 1934 at a farm in Stockbridge.
..... Click the link for more information. , one of the country's premier music festivals, is held annually at the former Tanglewood estate, which spans Lenox and adjoining StockbridgeStockbridge,
Native North Americans of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early 17th cent. they were known as the Housatonic and were part of the Mahican confederacy.
..... Click the link for more information. . Numerous other elegant estates are found in Lenox; many have been transformed into resorts or schools. The Mount (1902) was home to Edith WhartonWharton, Edith Newbold Jones,
1862–1937, American novelist, b. New York City, noted for her subtle, ironic, and superbly crafted fictional studies of New York society at the turn of the 20th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. and is now open to the public, and Ventfort Hall (1893), an Elizabethan Revival mansion, houses the Museum of the Gilded Age. The town was settled c.1750 and named Yokuntown; in 1767 it was set off from Richmond and renamed for Charles Lennox, 3d duke of Richmond and LennoxRichmond and Lennox, Charles Lennox, 3d duke of,
1735–1806, British statesman. He was secretary of state for the south of Europe (1766) and became a staunch defender of the cause of the American colonies.
..... Click the link for more information. , who championed the colonists. A 19th-century literary hub, Lenox was once home to Nathaniel HawthorneHawthorne, Nathaniel,
1804–64, American novelist and short-story writer, b. Salem, Mass., one of the great masters of American fiction. His novels and tales are penetrating explorations of moral and spiritual conflicts.
..... Click the link for more information. , whose cottage here burned (1890) and was rebuilt (1948).