I came to know the journey by heart.
The scent of burning wood filled the air.
I heard a train pass in the distance.
The Hoosic River flows through the grounds of Tourists, a hotel in North Adams, Massachusetts.Nicole Franzen
From Route 2, the commercial strip out front, Tourists looks like a series of wood-sided hangars.
(I later learned that the Modernist architecture of Sea Ranch, California, was a primary inspiration.)
The rooms have a camplike sparseness, with white walls and plywood furniture.
One of the Clark Art Institute’s galleries of European paintings.Nicole Franzen
The opening of the museum in 1999 in an abandoned electric works arguably jump-started the northern Berkshires revival.
Everything is oversize, or superabundant, or subsuming.
These alt-rock connections spill over into the galleries.
From left: Aerial obstacle courses at Ramblewild; Cosmic Latte, an installation of suspended LEDs by Spencer Finch, at Mass MoCA.Nicole Franzen
Caleb and I have a long history with the museum.
The Clark has 120 acres that fan out from the museum, with meadows scored by walking trails.
Ramblewild, 12 miles to the south, bills itself as a “tree-to-tree adventure park.”
From left: Blantyre, once a private home modeled after a Scottish Castle, is now a resort; the entry of the Inn at Kenmore Hall, a sophisticated bed-and-breakfast.Nicole Franzen
“I’m not going to tell you anything about it,” I told Caleb.
“I’ll just let it be a surprise.”
The truth is I wasn’t so sure what it was myself.
The Veterans War Memorial Tower on top of Mount Greylock.Nicole Franzen
We climbed, swung, crawled, shimmied.
We were clamped onto guide cables, so I never felt afraid.
I may have never felt so far from my everyday worries.
No steps back to the forest floor, nothing but empty space underneath us.
The only way down was to hook myself onto a retractable pulley and jump, as though skydiving.
Caleb went next, shouting an obscenity into the sylvan glade.
Then it was my turn.
We were pleasantly exhausted by the time we arrived at the Inn at Kenmore Hall.
In 2018, Frank Muytjens, previously the menswear director of J.
The floorboards creak, the Windsor chairs encourage good posture, and the tables are lit solely by candlelight.
The next evening, we found a very different scene just a fraction of a mile down the road.
Cantina 229 is a farm-to-table restaurant where the farm is directly beneath your feet.
There we were seated on a broad open-air deck overlooking the surrounding fields.
The atmosphere was relaxed and convivial; Roxy Music and the Psychedelic Furs played over the sound system.
I finished my meal content in stomach and soul.
Josh’s goals are humble.
“Cantina to us is just a watering hole,” he told me.
I’m convinced that the Irwins' achievement is far greater.
The building looks baronial, with ivy-covered turrets and a music room bookended by fireplaces.
But the hotel isn’t resistant to a bit of whimsy.
A wooden statue of a bear hides a Tesla charging station.
“This ispure New England,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” Caleb corrected me.
We drove on to the two-road town of West Stockbridge, where we fortified ourselves with panini at No.
6 Depot, a deservedly popular cafe, before tackling Monument Mountain, on the outskirts of Great Barrington.
At 1,640 feet, the peak makes for a moderately effortful hike.
Back at Blantyre, I hunched over my phone, scrolling through listings of local restaurants we could try.
Finally I gave up pretending.
“I really just want to go back to Cantina 229,” I said.
So we did, and the meal was every bit as good as the previous one.
As we got up to leave, Josh came out of the kitchen to say hello.
Overcome, I threw my arms around him in gratitude.
“Was that weird?”
I asked Caleb on the way out to the car.
“I hugged the chef.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Sometimes you hug the chef.”
The 48-room motel in North Adams augments its spare but sybaritic rooms with a wooded property to wander.
Blantyre(doubles from $645), in Lenox, has the feel of a grand manor.
What to See
In addition to a permanent collection that ranges from the fifth century B.C.
Work off the hours you’ve spent on contemplative museum-going atRamblewild, an aerial adventure park in Lanesborough.
6 Depot, in West Stockbridge, serves excellent sandwiches and coffee.
