By Stacey Morris
Only a 50-mile drive from Albany, Great Barrington, Mass., is a town that defies categorization. The Berkshire County town of under 10,000 is a tourist destination, second-home magnet for metro-dwellers, college town, and a working class community all rolled into one.
It’s also a perfect day trip or weekend getaway for Capital Region couples looking to get out of Dodge, thanks to its boutiques, live music venues, cutting edge restaurants, and wide range of outdoor activity options compliments of the Housatonic River, nearby mountains and state forests.
The Mahican Indians called the area Mahaiwe, meaning “the place downstream.” The village was first settled in 1726 and was officially incorporated as Great Barrington in 1761, named after the village of Great Barrington in Gloucestershire, England. The town is also the site of the first armed resistance against the British.
Great Barrington is located within the valley of the Housatonic River, and is also near the Williams River and Green River. Surrounding the town is the protective but picturesque range of the Berkshires, most notably, East Mountain (site of Butternut Basin and a state forest), Beartown Mountain (Beartown State Forest), and Monument Mountain.
Widely known as the commercial epicenter of the southern Berkshires, Great Barrington’s Main Street was the first in the United States to have electric lights. Today, the main street bustles with restaurants ranging from hippie to nouvelle, art galleries, clothing boutiques, and an atmosphere that reflects the politically progressive, very involved, and also predominantly affluent community residing there.
Notable natives and past and current residents include the famed Civil Rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois, pro golf player John Schroeder, the artist Walton Ford (who maintains a studio downtown), and the actress Karen Allen. Probably best known for her starring role as Marion Ravenwood opposite Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones movies, Allen continues to do work in feature films while simultaneously running her Great Barrington-based fiber arts business, Karen Allen Fiber Arts on Railroad Street.
“I studied to be a designer in college,” Allen says. “My design company was never meant to be a new career but a continuation of something I’d done since I was a child. We carry five or six different sweater designers, including me but also have coats, dresses, skirts, pants, hats, scarves, gloves, and jewelry.”
Allen first discovered the Berkshires in 1981 when she performed with the Berkshire Theatre Festival. “I fell in love with the area and returned almost every summer to work at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and at Shakespeare & Company,” she says. “I came initially for the beauty but settled here for my son’s education and for the creative community that has nurtured so many of my passions.” Allen began a yoga school in 1995 and teaches in the theater department of Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Playwright Juliane Hiam grew up in a nearby town and has witnessed Great Barrington’s evolution from slumbering small town to a cornucopia of progressive interests. “Great Barrington wasn’t anything very special when I was growing up in the Berkshires during the ’70s and ’80s,” she says. “It was just a little mill town. But it has grown into a bustling hot spot of boutiques, artists, New York weekenders and second home owners.”
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Photo courtesy of Anc516
