TheMount

The Mount Receives $750,000 Gift, Restructures Debt

Filed under: Estates, Luxury Travel & Hotels

The Mount, the historic Massachusetts home of author Edith Wharton, is slowly struggling out from under a mountain of debt with the help of a new restructuring plan. The home received a $750,000 gift from The Alice M. Kaplan Memorial Reserve,. A new plan will cut the Mount's funded debt almost in half to $4.7 million. The estate is planning a summer festival as well as an expanded program of workshops and lectures.

The Mount is located in the Berkshires area of Massachusetts which relies on summer tourism for its local museums and estates. The Mount is part of the "American Icons" admission program which lets visitors purchase special package deal tickets to four cultural institutions: Chesterwood and the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, The Mount and Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock. Chesterwood was the summer home of sculptor Daniel Chester French. The Berkshires area is also the home of Tanglewood, the summer venue for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The season starts July 3.

Gallery: Edith Wharton's The Mount

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The Mount Staves Off Foreclosure

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Good news for friends of The Mount, Edith Wharton's Lenox, Massachusetts, house today. Bloomberg reports that the property, which was facing foreclosure, has been saved at least temporarily. The 97-year-old estate raised $800,000 before the foreclosure deadline. Susan Wissler, senior executive officer of Edith Wharton Restoration Inc. says that the situation is still very critical. There is still an outstanding balance of around $5.5 million in bank loans (a $1.3 million mortgage and an additional credit line of $3.2 million). The Wharton preservation group had missed a $30,000 payment to Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in February. Edith Wharton Restoration started a campaign to raise $3 million The $800,000 was raised from 1,300 donors including former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner and his wife, Jane who gave $25,000. The Mount will be open for the season beginning May 9 but a new foreclosure date of May 31 still looms.

Gallery: Edith Wharton's The Mount

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Tags: edith wharton, foreclosure, massachusetts, the mount, TheMount