LENOX, MA. – Architectural historian Abigail Van Slyck will talk about her latest book, Playhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood, in which she examines children’s cottages and playhouses built by upper-class families on both sides of the Atlantic. A tea will be served after her presentation.

The adult grandchildren of Commodore Vanderbilt have an important role in the story, as they were among the first Americans to embrace a practice that had been pioneered by Queen Victoria, building small, yet habitable structures for the use of their children in Newport, on Long Island, and right here in the Berkshires. Disarmingly quaint, these charming buildings were nonetheless deeply enmeshed in adult concerns, supporting parental ambitions for their offspring and for themselves.

Abby Van Slyck is an architectural historian and the author of three books: Playhouses and Privilege: The Architecture of Elite Childhood (University of Minnesota Press, 2025); A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960 (University of Minnesota Press, 2006)—winner of both the Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize and the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award; and Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture, 1890-1920 (University of Chicago Press, 1995). 

Raised in the suburbs of Detroit, Abby received her undergraduate education at Smith College before earning a Ph.D. in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. She is Dayton Professor Emerita of Art History and Architectural Studies at Connecticut College and a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians. She lives in Mystic, Connecticut, where she spends as much time as she can in the garden.

Tickets are $45. Members receive a discount code for $5 off all ticket prices. Students 22 and under are $22. Ticket pricing includes access to the mansion throughout the day of this event from 10 am to 4 pm. Reservations are strongly encouraged as seats are limited. Walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations visit https://gildedage.org/pages/calendar or call us at (413) 637-3206. Please note that all tickets are nonrefundable and non-exchangeable. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker St. in Lenox.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated by the Massachusetts Cultural Council as an important partner of the Lenox Cultural District, one of the five such Berkshire County districts, Ventfort Hall Gilded Age Mansion & Museum was built in 1893 for George and Sarah Morgan, the sister of legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan.

Self-guided tours of the historic mansion are offered daily, as well as Tea & Talks, such exhibitions as the Bellefontaine Collection, concerts, theater, ghost tours and hunts as well as other programs. This elegant Jacobean-Revival Berkshire “cottage” is open to the public year-round and is available for private rental. Ventfort Hall, also an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures program sponsored by The White House, has undergone substantial restoration, which continues.

When: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 at 4:00 PM

Where: Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum, 104 Walker Street, Lenox, MA 01240

Admission: $45, members receive a discount code for $5 off, $22 for students 22 and under.

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