Merrywood

We are just back from a sweet weekend away in the Berkshires. We stayed in Lenox, MA where I once spent several wonderful summers teaching at a small music camp just down the road from Tanglewood. 

I loved it there. Loved the rickety old shingled "cottage" with its numerous sleeping porches, slanting floors, ginormous kitchen and carriage house. As faculty we weren't much older than a lot of the campers. We saw them every day for lessons, trooped into town with them for laundry and pain au chocolat, delighted in their ridiculous pranks, skits and traditions and threw ourselves into music making like there was no tomorrow. It was heaven. Truly. The friendships I made there more than 30 years ago remain some of my closest today.

In the early 1980s the owner of the camp passed away and despite heroic efforts by some to keep it going, Merrywood closed its doors forever. The property soon fell into a state of disrepair and eventually was abandoned all together. 

 I'm so glad I got to pay it a visit. Grateful for the memories.