Merwin House, also known as Tranquility, is a house located at 14 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is now a non-profit museum operated by Historic New England and sometimes open to the public. An admission fee is charged.
The original brick, Federal-style house was constructed c. 1825 by the Dresser family, who sold it to William and Elizabeth Doane of New York City as a summer home in 1875. They doubled its size by adding a shingle-style ell, and also remodeled its interior. It was donated to the public by the Doanes' daughter, Vipont Merwin, who was born in the house in 1878 and died there in 1965. The property was acquired by Historic New England in 1966, whereupon it became a museum.
The house currently reflects furnishings and a lifestyle of the late 19th century, with period antiques and items collected during world travel.
Famous quotes containing the words merwin and/or house:
“all afternoon
Their witless offspring flock like piped rats to its siren
Crescendo, and agape on the crumbling ridge
Stand in a row and learn.”
—William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)
“You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it—low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion—and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)