Wheatleigh

It hardly seems like Wheatleigh can be real — a 19th-century Italianate mansion in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, set on a 22-acre estate surrounded by parkland designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, complete with a small but high-end French restaurant and a mere 19 rooms and suites. It’s ideal for some rural seclusion, if that’s what you’re after, but this corner of the Northeast is full of culture as well; the town of Lenox is steeped in literary history, and you’re just a few minutes’ walk from the Tanglewood estate, the summertime home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

While Wheatleigh has been updated for a contemporary luxury-hotel audience, the architectural character of the house remains very much intact. The interiors show the attention of a modern decorator’s eye, but the style is still pure Gilded Age elegance, and high-tech interventions like Roku televisions and Bose sound systems remain unobtrusive. The Portico restaurant is the more formal option, with just eight tables and a phenomenal menu by Jeffrey Thompson, and the Lounge serves more casual fare. Though it wears its English and Italian inspirations on its sleeve, Wheatleigh is an American original through and through.