Most of you know that our off-season Romantic Weekend Package (now through late June) includes a $30 Gift Certificate to Nejaimes….the extraordinary wine and gourmet food shop located in Lenox and Stockbridge.

But during the month of November, Nejaimes features their WINE SPECTACULAR SALE, when they discount much of the store from 15% to 30%.   And these are not discontinued, expiring, or less popular selections.   In fact, they include some of their most popular wines, because they stock up for the summer and Fall crowd, and what is still left by November is offered for prices designed to reduce their inventory.  For example, ALL Australian reds in the store are 25% off.  

So if you are a wine lover who takes advantage of wine discounts by buying in bulk, and you consider our $30 "starter," you could significantly reduce…or maybe even off-set the cost of your  2-night stay at Hampton Terrace with your savings.

And always, regardless of the season, Nejaimes gives a 15% discount for wine by the case…even mixed cases.   Extraordinary.

Hampton Terrace continues to be ranked #1 by Trip Advisor reviews, and our off-season rate is $189/night for all rooms in our two main buildings and $249 for the king suites.  

We include full breakfast, and most of our rooms feature fireplaces and Jacuzzis.  We have a private heirloom bar on the property, stocked with glasses and openers…just in case you can't resist the urge to start digging into your case of wine.   Enjoy!

As they say, the leaves are no redder on Saturday.   Or at least, I say that.

So considering that you have the same access to the Fall Foliage, the historic house tours, the museums, restaurants, shops and galleries, why pay 30% more for lodging?

Take advantage of our Mid-Week Discount…when every room in our Main House or Carriage House is $190/night, down from $260-$275.   And our King Suites are $250/night, reduced from $345.    And breakfast is as good on Wednesday morning as it is on Sunday.

Actually, I will go one step further….   On the weekends you'll run into lines at the restaurants and shops.   It will be harder to park in downtown Lenox or Stockbridge.  You can't be as spontaneous picking an evening activity.   Sunday through Thursday stay at Hampton Terrace.  

Better experience….pay less…any questions?

Why is Lenox here?   Don't start me on that…..well okay, a little bit.  

At the turn of the century, Lenox, fueled in part by Edith Wharton's famous phrase "keeping up with the Joneses," became the "inland Newport," a concentration of Gilded Age homes and parties unrivaled in America.   Famous late-summer names included Vanderbilt, Morgan, Westinghouse, Carnegie, Proctor, Wharton, Sloane and scores of others.  They called their homes "cottages."   Our beloved Hampton Terrace was considered in that category.

And they called their beautiful horse-drawn carriages "tubs."   Both tongue-in-cheek characterizations were thin attempts to minimize their otherwise ostentatious life-styles.   We won't expound upon whose backs these fortunes were made….but now, 100-years later, it is fun to gawk at their great monuments to excess.   Which brings me to September 12-14, "A Weekend of the Gilded Age" in Lenox.

So let's start with the "tubs."   When these great estates were abandoned in the 1920s and 1930s, many of the original carriages were left hanging in their carriage houses.   Several decades ago, a local organization formed to rescue as many of these magnificent carriages as possible and find a way to use them in their former context.  That was not hard.   During the heyday of Lenox's Gilded Age, the 'famous" families of Lenox would venture into town for a month or so, have their parties, and then depart en-masse to their next destination (summer houses, fall houses, winter houses, city houses, etc).   Before leaving, they would cover their carriages with flowers, load up their families, and participate in Lenox's annual "Tub Parade," where they would wave good-bye to the locals until next year.   I think I used the word "ostentatious" before, and now I'll use "pretentious."

So how much fun would it be to reanimate that scene?   As it turns out, a LOT of fun.   Lenox's annual "Tub Parade" will be held Saturday afternoon, September 13, and it occurs just several hundred feet from Hampton Terrace's front door.   There will be hundreds of people attempting to find parking places before the parade.   Not our guests.   One of the many benefits of staying at Hampton Terrace, of course.   Another benefit:

The signature event during the Gilded Age Weekend is an actual Gilded Age Ball at Ventfort Hall on Saturday evening, the 13th.   Imagine you are an invited guest of the Morgan family, enjoying their Berkshire "cottage," smoking their cigars, drinking their wine….and here is the benefit of staying at Hampton Terrace….staggering across the street to fall into your bed.  I'll leave the light on.

And what is a Gilded Age weekend without the official chronicler of the Gilded Age, Edith Wharton, not weighing in.   "The Mount" grounds will be open on Sunday afternoon for picnics for just $10 with all proceeds supporting the mansion.   It is possible to also add a discounted tour of the house itself.

The GREAT NEWS is that Hampton Terrace considers September a "low season" month.   All rooms in the Main House and Carriage House are $189/night and we do STILL include the $30 Gift Certificate to Nejaimes, the wine shop with a 2-night stay.   How can I afford that, my banker asks?   By filling up, I answer.   So please make my banker happy.

At Hampton Terrace Bed and Breakfast in Lenox, MA,  we attempt to make every guest happy for every night they stay with us.   Since 1999, when we bought the inn, that represents 26,300 opportunities to meet or fall short of expectations.

Let us start by saying that we KNOW we cannot please all of the people all of the time….although we try very hard.   It is especially difficult to do that in a 110-year-old historic home, where every room is different and expectations are hard to manage.   For those who are looking for the uniformity and guarantees of a cookie-cutter hotel chain, they may not be prepared for what they find in an inn….a place where such guarantees are replaced by distinct experiences, authenticity and the warm embrace of an innkeeper hoping to earn a repeat guest. More on Hampton Terrace #1 in Lenox, TripAdvisor.com

For many decades there has been concern that there is not enough music education in the schools.   But one of the by-products of so much classical music in the Berkshires is a plethora of music education opportunities. More on Music in the Berkshires: Classical Beyond Tanglewood, Part 3

You can find classical music of some variety just about every night at Tanglewood from mid-June until late August every year.   But on any given night in the Berkshires there are thousands of visitors and second homeowners who are willing to support music at other venues up and down the county.

The Concerts at Tannery Pond is a series of six or seven chamber music evenings held in an 1834 Shaker building in New Lebanon, New York from May through October.   Established in 1991 by photographer/pianist Christian Steiner, the annual series combines music with a serene setting that would be hard to beat anywhere.

Continuing in the chamber music genre, there is the South Mountain Concert Series, held on weekends in September each year.   Located just north of Lenox, the series has been presented since 1918 and is held in a hall built that specifically for chamber music.   Performers over the years have included Leonard Bernstein, Gary Graffman, Leontyne Price and Peter Serkin, and quartets have included the Borromeo, the Emerson, The Guarneri, the Tokyo, the Julliard, the Orion and the Vermeer. More on Music in the Berkshires: Classical Beyond Tanglewood, Part 2

What is he doing?   Promoting another Berkshire lodging option?   I guess that could be the end result of this entry, because I do really like everyone I know at the Red Lion Inn, including Nancy Fitzpatrick and Brian Butterworth.   But I am really just trying to promote their nightly music, and if I lose a few potential guests along the way, so be it. More on Music in the Berkshires: The Red Lion Inn

In 1937, when the Depression and taxation caused the gild to come off the Gilded Age, the great mansions and estates of Lenox were largely abandoned.   Many became institutional:   schools, asylums or monasteries, and some spent more than half a century empty.   But luckily, one was donated to the Boston Symphony…and the rest, as they say, is history.

Over the decades, as the audiences who attended concerts at Tanglewood grew, more and more of these great estates and historic "cottages" were able to be put back into service:   Cranwell, Wheatleigh, Blantyre…and even Hampton Terrace, one of the original "Berkshire Cottages."   In fact, most of the Lenox inns are the former second homes of the turn-of-the-century's rich and famous.   Tanglewood itself, one mile down the hill from Lenox town center, consists of multiple performance venues inhabiting a most embracing rural setting.   Lenonard Bernstein, a alum of the affiliated Tanglewood Institute always proclaimed that the Tanglewood property, and the Berkshires in general, had captured his soul. More on Music in the Berkshires: Tanglewood