Quality Inn now stand across from Searles Castle . Freer often sent letters and telegrams from the Berkshire Inn , as evidenced by the seals and return addresses on correspondence sent to friends and family , Platt included .
By late-1918 , several years after the project ’ s conception , the bungalow ( today , Chesterfield ’ s main house ) was finished . While Freer lived to see the home completed , that wasn ’ t the case with Freer Gallery of Art . World War I delayed construction , and Freer died of a stroke in 1919 in New York City at age 65 . Both the home and museum were left in the care of his assistant , Katharine Rhoades , who saw the museum to completion and took care of the estate . She never did live in the bungalow , but she did rent it out until its sale in 1929 . Though there are mentions of Freer inviting friends over to stay with him at the property , it is unknown how much time he truly spent there . In recent years , visitors to the estate have noted seeing a ghost they believe to be Freer wandering the halls of the main house , so perhaps the art collector decided to spend eternity at the home he never got to live in .
The Spaldings ( 1929 – 1970 )
Freer was not the only owner of the estate to have been interested in the arts . Albert Spalding ' s uncle and father may have founded the Spalding sporting goods company , but Albert inherited a love of music from his mother , Marie Boardman . He became a well-known violinist after decades of study , recording his music on Edison Records phonograph cylinders and teaching seminars at Boston University on chamber music and the violin .
Albert ’ s wife , Mary Pyle Spalding , was also a supporter of the arts . She was a patron of the Musicians Emergency Fund , the Phoenix Theatre , and the Metropolitan Museum of Art . She also had a similar interest as Freer , owning a sizable collection of oriental art dating from the Shang dynasty circa 1100 B . C . E . to the 1700s rule of Ch ' ien-lung ( Qianlong ) and later .
The couple bought Freer ’ s estate from Rhoades , who had become , according to Albert , a “ warm friend ” when they rented it as their summer home before purchasing it in 1929 . The Spaldings named the estate
“ Aston Magna ” after a town in England where they had spent their previous summers . Coincidentally , Aston Magna in England is half an hour north of a town there called Great Barrington .
It wasn ’ t long before the Spaldings got to work . Albert installed a fireproof walkin vault in the main house to store his violins , one of which was a rare Stradivarius , then added the guest house and rehearsal studio that remain today . Mary bought several pieces of neighboring land to expand the property , including the last parcel belonging to the Scully children . She then hired Fletcher Steele , the landscape architect who worked on Naumkeag , to work on Aston Magna .
Despite teasing from their friends in Stockbridge about buying a home on the other side of Monument Mountain ’ s so-called “ Great Divide ,” the Spaldings were quite active socially . On occasion , they would host pool parties and small-scale concerts , entertaining wellknown guests of the musical world , including Ignacy Jan Paderewski , Jean Sibelius , Pablo Casals , and the amateur violinist Albert Einstein . Albert Spalding
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48 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Spring 2024