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Leonard Bernstein and Brook Farm Inn

[Portrait of Leonard Bernstein, Carnegie Hall, New York, N.Y., between 1946 and 1948] (LOC)Brook Farm Inn was recently honored by a visit from Seth Gopin, a descendant of Lena and Max Rosenberg.  The Rosenbergs are important in the history of our inn for having the vision to buy it as a private home in 1949, and turn it into an inn.  (The full history can be viewed at http://www.brookfarm.com/welcome/history) In those days it was named Shadowood. Seth has memories that he shared with us, about his family’s gatherings here, and about summers spent working in the kitchen and dining room.  He also shared advertisements from that era.  The daily rate was $9.50, and the weekly rate between $50 and $65. 

Although these days Brook Farm Inn is known for tea with scones, Lena was famous for her tea with rugelach.  And the dining room was what  we now refer to as the library. Then there’s the “Lenny Story.”  Lena confirmed that in the early days of Shadowood, Leonard Bernstein, who was on the faculty of Tanglewood Institute,  worked during breakfast  in our very own kitchen  in exchange for room and board.  Thank you, Seth!  Here’s a photo of Seth (on the right) with Linda and friend Martin.

 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 at 1:58 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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