Lodgings

Community

Act III for Ragamont House: Now a B&B and Chic Caterer

Finally, Pete Hathaway has figured out what his landmark mansion on Salisbury's Main Street was destined to be: A party house.  When Rural Intelligence checked in with Hathaway a little more than a year ago— A ‘Step-Down’ House in Salisbury That’s A Cut Above—he was turning

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Community

Kinderhook Farm: A Fantasy Vacation Destination

When she was five-years-old, Renee Iacone Clearman's family planned to go to a farm for a vacation.  "I was delirious!," she recalls.  "I packed all my clothes into grocery bags.   Then my father got sick, so we couldn't go." Decades passed.  Then

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Community

Berkshire B&Bs Offer Free Rooms for Vets

Veterans Day is one of the few Federal holidays that has not been moved to a Monday, which means a lot of us will not be going to work on Thursday, November 11. If you're a veteran, you can have a free mini-vacation in the Berkshires courtesy of

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Community

The Spirit of Bohemia Lives at Sheffield's Race Brook Lodge

Before it became a brand, the Berkshires was a state of mind. If you're searching for that now mythic land where Alice's Restaurant was not just a song but a place where hippies congregated, you can start at Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield, MA. Owned by

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Community

Rooms With A View: Bascom Lodge Reopens on Mount Greylock

There's nowhere better to take in the fall foliage than a mountaintop with panoramic views, and once again, after a couple of years of work that kept the road to the summit closed, you can drive to the top of Mt. Greylock, which is the highest peak in

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Community

The Winthrop Estate: New Life for a Gilded Age Mansion

In 2002, when Jamie and Ethan Berg were living in Cambridge, MA, and expecting their first child they started to explore the real estate market in the Berkshires.  Their broker mischievously asked them: "You wouldn't be interested in a 15,000 square foot mansion in the middle

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Community

Kripalu Weathers Change by Being Flexible and Disciplined

Change is never easy but when change comes to a beloved institution, one that has been a source of succor for tens of thousands, it can be downright dangerous.   This is why cathedrals are built to last. The brains behind Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, a "

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Community

Lodgings: The Inn at Hudson, a One-Doily B & B

What do you do when it dawns on you, too late, that you may have bought more house than you can afford to maintain?  That’s easy; turn it into a b & b.  At least, it was easy for Dini Lamot and Windle Davis. A little background: The couple

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Community

The Porches Inn at MASS MoCA

I have to make a confession: I was skeptical about staying at Porches. Although I love visiting MASS MoCA, I could not imagine paying to spend a night in converted Victorian factory-workers' houses across from the museum in order to wake up in North Adams instead of my own

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Community

A New Hudson B & B, The Croff House, Opens This Weekend

Exactly 137 years ago this Friday, on April 10, 1872, the ribbon was cut on the first private gated community in the United States.  When, precisely, Willard Place in Hudson shed its gate is open to speculation but it is known that the street itself officially became city property sometime

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Community

Best Laid Plans: Mount Merino Manor

Lodgings that bill themselves as bed-and-breakfasts tend to be hard by well-traveled roads, the better to catch the eye of passing tourists.  Another reason: less competition from big spenders; therefore, a better price.   To run a successful b & b, one must first find a house this is commodious and

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Community

Rhinecliff Hotel & Restaurant (pssst...it's open)

In Rhinebeck, where she lives with her family, Jan Greenberg, author of Hudson Valley Harvest: A Food Lovers Guide to Farms, Restaurants and Open-Air Markets (Countryman Press), was strategically positioned to keep an eye on the venerable-but-gone-to-seed Rhinecliff Hotel as new owner James Chapman pushed it, inch-by-inch, toward re-opening.  A

By Editor