Editor

Community

The Well-Groomed Grooms: Mark Johnson & Maurice Peterson

The guests at Mark Johnson and Maurice Peterson's wedding on June 5 in Lenox made an extra effort with their clothes and hair, but that was to be expected. After all, the two grooms own Seven.Salon.Spa, the improbably chic day spa and hair salon that they

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Parties

Equine Advocates' Barn-to-Barn Open House

In 1996, Equine Advocates, under the leadership of Susan Wagner, started saving horses from slaughter, abuse, and neglect.  In 2004, they established a 140-acre rescue farm on Route 66 just north of Chatham village.  Today, EA has nearly 100 horses, ponies, donkeys and even a couple of goats under

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Parties

Stargazing in Salisbury: Jill Clayburgh, Ed Herrmann & Co.

For 90 un-airconditioned minutes,  Jill Clayburgh and Edward Herrmann showed how great actors perform in a hot, humid New England church for no money: they perform with the same grace and gusto as if it were an opening night on Broadway. Joined onstage by Star Herrmann, Rick Trabucco and

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Food

About That Vineyard…

Christopher Matthews, a wine and spirits writer and educator, divides his time between Manhattan and Red Hook, Dutchess County. He has been the wine and spirits columnist for New York Law Journal Magazine since 2004, and has written about food and drink for Epicurious.com  and the Culinary Institute of

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Parties

The Show Must Go On

At their season finale gala performance, Close Encounters with Music's artistic director and cellist,  Yehuda Hanani, managed to deliver his inimitable opening remarks to an evening of Czech  music, then announced that he could not play, as usual.   Felled by a persistent (rumored to be tick-related) fever,

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Parties

Opening Night of 5th Berkshire International Film Festival

There was a red carpet outside the old Great Barrington firehouse where the 5th annual Berkshire International Film Festival had a sit down dinner party for 225 guests on June 3,  before a screening next door at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center of two documentaries about accomplished performers in their

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Parties

Columbia County Land Conservancy Food & Family Fête

Rural Intelligence's friend and sometime contributor Paige Orloff, one of the founders of The Sister Project reports: Over 1,000 people attended the Columbia Land Conservancy's annual Memorial Day weekend fundraisier, a family-friendly afternoon of food (catered by Carlucci Catering  of Chatham, Georgia Ray'

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Arts

Crandell Theatre Set to Re-open July 9; Chatham Film Club Prevails

It was assumed.  For years The Chatham Film Club had been raising funds so that one day they would be able to buy the Crandell Theatre, whenever second-generation owner Tony Quirino decided to retire.  Then last January, with his retirement date fast approaching, Quirino died suddenly, leaving no will.

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Community

Berkshire Film Festival's Kelley Vickery Paints the Town Red

"Parties are not the point of BIFF," says Kelley Vickery, the hands-on founder of the Berkshire International Film Festival. "The programming is." Nevertheless, every year  BIFF ups the glamour factor for its parties, which is why Vickery negotiated with the Town of Great Barrington to

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Community

Manhattan Transfer: Twentysomethings Back in the Berkshires

By Fiona BreslinFor twentysomethings living in the 413, last call is early by Manhattan standards. A late night is 1:30 a.m., 2 o'clock if you’re lucky. But it’s the monotony that can become most unappealing: one bar, one street, 1 a.m., every night.

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Arts

Berkshire WordFest Bows at The Mount

A New Festival in Lenox: July 23 - 25 Once again, words will prevail at The Mount.  For the past thirty years, actors, directors, gardeners and decorators have lovingly put their stamp on Edith Wharton's 1902 estate and gardens in Lenox.  But the literary community is taking it back.

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Community

Upstairs at Olana: Frederic Church Slept Here

During the period (c. 1869) that the great Hudson River School painter Frederic Church was dreaming up his home Olana with the architect Calvert Vaux, Victorian-era domestic architecture was going through it's most flamboyant and fantastical stage.  Though Church was too artistic and cosmopolitan to follow the

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