Naumkeag,

Naumkeag, perched above the village of Stockbridge, was the summer estate of the Choate family who began summering in Berkshire County in the 1870s. Designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1885, this 44 room, shingle-style house is filled with original furniture, ceramics, and artwork collected from America, Europe, and the Far East. Joseph Hodges Choate (1832-1917) was a prominent New York attorney. Between 1899 and 1905, he served in England as U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James. His wife Caroline Sterling Choate was an artist and mother of five children. Their second daughter, Mabel Choate, inherited the property in 1929.

Naumkeag is famous for its eight acres of terraced gardens and landscaped grounds surrounded by forty acres of woodland, meadow, and pasture that stretch to the Housatonic River Valley. The gardens and landscaped grounds, first designed in the late 1880s by Nathan Barrett, were transformed and expanded between 1926 and 1956 by Mabel Choate and landscape architect Fletcher Steele. Separate garden "rooms" include the Afternoon Garden, Tree Peony Terrace, Rose Garden, Evergreen Garden, Chinese Garden, and Linden Walk. Perhaps the most famous feature of the landscape is Steele's 1938 Blue Steps, a series of deep blue fountain pools flanked by four flights of stairs climbing up a gentle hillside and overhung by birch trees.

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Naumkeag

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Naumkeag and terraced lawn

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Part of the Gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, part of the gardens

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Naumkeag, entrance to Chinese Garden

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Naumkeag, Chinese Garden

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Naumkeag, Chinese Garden

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Naumkeag, Chinese Garden

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Naumkeag, Water spillway which flows into the terraced pools

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Naumkeag, terraced pools

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Naumkeag, view

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Naumkeag, view

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