If you’re a movie fan, you might know this façade – it was featured in the Hollywood film The Cider House Rules. Residents of the bucolic Berkshires town of Lenox know it as Ventfort Hall. And as you’re going to learn in the segment I just shot for an upcoming series of New England Legends segments for Connecting Point, others also know it as a place for restless spirits…
Ventfort Hall in Lenox, Massachusetts
Haunted houses are funny things. Some may happen to look the part, while others may have a tragic backstory tied to it which lends itself to a haunting. And then there are others such as this one, so rich with history that perhaps those who spent time here – those who laughed and cried, those who danced and dined, and those who loved and lost – are reticent to say goodbye to it even after leaving this world.
Built by the Morgan family of J.P. Morgan fame, this Gilded Age summer retreat or “cottage” as it was known (if you can call a sprawling mansion such a thing!), was built for his sister Sarah and saw things over the course of its history that most of us can only dream of. It has ties to the famed Massachusetts 54th Regiment from the Civil War. It was host to the people who shaped and molded this country at the turn of the century – the Vanderbilts and the Rockerfellers of the era. It even has ties to the Lusitania and the Titanic… when you think about it in the context of all of that history, being the featured backdrop in a Hollywood movie isn’t that impressive after all, is it?
Jeff Belanger talks with Trevor Dean about Ventfort Hall’s ghosts and history
Is it any wonder that people in this gorgeous mansion claim to see the spectre of a woman and smell the overwhelming scent of her perfume to this day? If you were Sarah Morgan, then perhaps you wouldn’t want to leave either…
