Tag Archives: Linda Law

Refuting a False Statement

In a report published by the Berkshire Eagle on January 26, 2026, the attorney for the developers, Jonathan Silverstein, is quoted as follows:

“The clear intent of project opponents, who continue to urge the Board to require a ‘new’ special permit, is to defeat the project by making the review process prohibitively expensive and lengthy,”

That statement is categorically false.

Below, a letter from one near-abutter to Elm Court, who has advocated for the preservation of Stockbridge’s historic & environmental resources across several decades. As submitted to the Board of Selectmen on January 31, her letter provides accurate background for where we find ourselves today:

My husband and I are full time Stockbridge residents who have lived on Old Stockbridge Road near the Elm Court estate since 1998. We have watched the estate transition from an abandoned, vandalized mansion to a family home – and now to a proposed massive resort hotel.

Twenty years ago, Robert Berle, the great-great grandson of the original owner, and his wife, Sonya, asked the town to change the bylaw to permit a 18-room boutique hotel. We, along with most others, voted at Town Meeting to allow this use. We were thankful that the Berles were renovating the mansion, and we enjoyed some of the events that they graciously hosted.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t make a go of it. In 2012 Amstar, AKA Front Yard, the new owner, met with the Stockbridge selectboard to write an amendment to the existing Cottage Era Estate bylaw that would allow for a larger resort hotel. 

This proposal included an Annex and Spa connected to the mansion by a corridor thereby increasing the total size of the hotel to 110,000 square feet. No other buildings were proposed.  Most people thought the plan would entail just the one building. At Town Meeting, when I asked the developer’s lawyer, if negotiation to reduce the scope of their project is possible, he promised that there would be “plenty of time” to address the size and scale.  Sadly, there was never an opportunity for that discussion.

The amendment passed but a special permit was still required. There was plenty of vocal and written opposition. A letter objecting to the size of the project and its impact on our residential neighborhood, and signed by 110 residents, was submitted. After three hearings, the Stockbridge selectboard voted for the proposal. Next came special hearings in Lenox town boards. The proposal passed the by one vote. But a group of abutters and neighbors, incensed by the lack of communication between them and the town boards, brought a lawsuit to Land Court. The suit was dismissed. But the developers, unable to secure financing, never broke ground. 

Fast forward to 2025. The current owners have proposed a plan actually much larger than the original. Instead of disturbing 10 acres under the old plan, 40 acres would be disrupted under the new. Instead of a single structure they propose building 12 hotel buildings and 38 individual houses – 50 separate structures requiring hundreds of feet of extra roads and driveways.

Before 2002, the Elm Court 89-acre property was subject to four-acre zoning which meant only 17 new houses would have been permitted. The purpose of 4-acre zoning was, and is, to help preserve the rural character of the town while conserving open space. Similarly, the purpose of the Bylaw was to preserve the historic architecture and landscape of our great estates by allowing for adaptive reuse. The loss of habitat required to build 50 buildings is immense. It is ironic that the new owners claim to be conserving nature (mostly wetlands) while in fact aiding its destruction by earmarking for development 25 acres of currently pristine land.

This oversized development might be appropriate in a suburban setting, but it will not enhance the landscape; and it will most certainly change the rural character of our town. 

It is now over 11 years since the special permit was passed. A lot has changed. This new proposal needs to be carefully discussed by town residents and neighbors as well as reviewed by our town boards and commissions.  

Julie Edmonds

Obviously, it is in the public interest that such a massive development proposal situated in such an environmentally sensitive location, while also being surrounded by established residential neighborhoods, receive maximum attention, with careful, thorough review by all qualified boards and commissions, including the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Rushing half-baked plans past a small number of individuals who simply do not have the expertise nor experience to evaluate them would represent willful & capricious indifference to everyone except the developers.

That is their “clear intent”!

And that is NOT in the public interest.

 

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Sour Ethers Among the Falling Leaves

What is it about Elm Court (now rebranded as Vanderbilt Berkshires Estate) that seems to bring out lack of transparency from its owners? Is it moldy air inside the mansion, or what?

Primary among our concerns: why, given the acrimony, misinformation and outright hostility that marred the previous chapter of ownership, has Linda S. Law not reached out to the neighborhood, despite several open invitations, made in good faith? Would such dialogue not be in her best interests? Might she not actually learn something about the character of Old Stockbridge Road, and its longtime residents, including those who live on former Gilded Age estates?

First, we relay a Letter to the Editor published in the Berkshire Eagle, written by neighborhood resident, Mr. Wayne Lemanski:

To the editor: As a neighbor of Elm Court, I read with interest Linda Law’s plan to bring a “bright light shining over Lenox.” (“Historic Elm Court has been rebranded Vanderbilt Berkshires Estate. What’s next for the Gilded Age mansion?” Eagle, Oct. 3.)

After purchasing a property that will have a significant impact on a neighborhood, you would think a successful real estate entrepreneur would touch base with the neighbors: introduce yourselves, let neighbors know you plans, how it will effect them and most important to the developer, begin to gain support for the project.

Having owned the property for close to 10 months, the owners have failed to reach out. Lack of neighborhood support killed the Travaasa project, and I would predict Vanderbilt in the Berkshires would face the same outcome. So maybe Linda Law is right to have an extremely pessimistic nature.

 
 

To the editor: As the community recognizes, Elm Court is steeped in a magnificent history over the course of the last 130-plus years.

It has both risen and fallen throughout the decades as a product of both care and neglect. Most recently, Travaasa proposed a plan over the course of 10-plus years that became mired in cost and time and created a groundswell of discontent on Old Stockbridge Road. This discontent was so contentious that emotions became the fuel for litigation that served no one productively.

Our efforts to date have been to carefully and calmly complete a substantive due diligence review on Elm Court’s current conditions while keeping a keen eye on it’s future. (“Historic Elm Court has been rebranded Vanderbilt Berkshires Estate. What’s next for the Gilded Age mansion?” Eagle, Oct. 3.) It remains abundantly clear to those of us who have the courage to rescue such an iconic property that it is essential to first fully understand all of the pressures that face any entity that accepts this responsibility. This process is time consuming.

I appreciate Wayne Lemanski’s point of view and agree that the neighborhood support is an integral component to its success. (“Letter: Elm Court’s new owners should do more community outreach,” Eagle, Oct. 5.) Elm Court’s success will also be ensured if the broader communities of Stockbridge and Lenox continue to be supportive and to partner with us at every opportunity to save this exceptional property. This combined commitment will ensure a pathway forward amidst astronomical costs and hurdles. I promise you, Mr. Lemanski, that your name is on our list when the invitations are extended.

We note there is no longer any pie-flying-through-sky talk of “bright lights” and “global beacons”. No, now there is the harsh reality of “astronomical costs and hurdles.”

Far from something “nobody has thought of before” nor something that is “accretive to the community,” to quote Ms. Law from an earlier sales talk, we are now anticipating a typical intensive residential and rental-unit development designed to squeeze every last dollar from those eighty nine acres and from the rotting manse.

As she also said recently, ‘’I think what we’re cooking up is going to be a killer.” Here we go again.

A Sudden Change of Tune

Just a few short weeks ago, new Elm Court owner Linda S. Law, having relieved “Front Yard LLC” of the property, used rather exalted language to describe her plans.

In response to questions from a Berkshire Eagle reporter, she exclaimed that she wanted Elm Court, a sprawling Vanderbilt trophy house dating from the Gilded Age, to “shine a bright light globally, and be a beacon for Lenox, Stockbridge and the entire Berkshire region.”

Here in the neighborhood, having been through the Front Yard (Amstar) chapter marked by years of cynical misrepresentations of their true agenda, we were skeptical, while remaining open to the possibility that Ms. Law might be serious about shining light, through the establishment of some sort of non-profit use, contributing to the public good within the Berkshires and beyond.

In fact, within the very same Vanderbilt family, there is a visionary, thriving precedent for such benevolent use on the shores of Lake Champlain: Shelburne Farms, now a globally recognized center for place-based, sustainable education and regenerative agriculture. Possibly, Elm Court might shine a similar sort of bright light here in the Berkshires?

Alas, according to recent reporting in the New York Post, Ms. Law appears to have changed her tune. She now claims to be “talking with three different resort companies about managing the property,”  and wants ” to add more amenities,”  such as “a speakeasy, a movie theater and a place for gardening classes to honor the gardening legacy.”  The basement will also offer a variety of pampering services within a 15,000-square-foot spa. In other words: same old, same old.

To be sure, we take any story published in the New York Post with a boulder-sized grain of salt. Yet according to our own sources, the new owner has yet to reach out to the Stockbridge Board of Selectman nor to the surrounding neighborhood. Not good signs, regarding attention to the public interest. Not good signs at all. Here we go again?

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