An Enlightened Jazz Era
The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts with its historic landmarks, museums, and performing arts venues have long been a vacation mecca for tourists, and New Yorkers in particular, especially those seeking cultural entertainment. In the years immediately following World War II, it was an easy two-and-a-half hour drive from Manhattan on the Taconic State Parkway to any of the quaint New England towns that had long attracted summer visitors.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra had established its summer home at Tanglewood in Lenox. Ted Shawn’s dance entourage held forth at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, and there were summer theater companies in Stockbridge and Williamstown.
The Barbers
In 1950, a young couple from New York, Philip and Stephanie Barber purchased a portion of the summer estate of the late Countess de Heredia, property that straddled the towns of Stockbridge and Lenox, and converted one of the buildings into an inn. Their plan was to recreate a cultural environment in this pastoral setting for the kind of company, conversation, and conviviality that they had come to treasure back in metropolitan New York.
On a July evening in 1950, the Barbers opened the doors of the renovated farm buildings they had named Music Inn and invited Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Alan Lomax, and Rev. Gary Davis to perform in what had been a carriage house for an audienc
