Quick Area Guide
The scenic year round beauty of this idyllic corner of New England surrounds the unspoiled college town of Williamstown, consistently voted the finest small liberal arts college in the nation. The small town of just 6,000 residents offers a remarkably sophisticated menu of world class art and performing arts venues plus recreation of every description. Within a few hours of NYC or Boston, this historic and carefully protected oasis in a hurried world combines a peaceful setting, stimulating activities and spectacular scenery.
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Attractions
The Clark Art Institute
In 1911, after a distinguished career in the United States Army, Sterling Clark settled in Paris and began collecting works of art, an interest he inherited from his father. When he married Francine Clary eight years later, she joined him in what quickly became a shared passion. Together they created a remarkable collection of paintings, silver, sculpture, porcelain, drawings, and prints with complete reliance on their own judgments and tastes. In 1950 the Clarks founded the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute as a permanent home for their collection, and the museum first opened to the public in 1955. Since its conception, the Institute has had a dual mission as both a museum and a center for research and higher education. It is in this spirit that the Clark has expanded over the last five decades to become the influential institution it is today.
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Nestled in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, the Williamstown Theatre Festival is a summer-long celebration of theater that brings together a vast and impressive array of artists and offers audiences varied cultural experiences. Every summer, WTF presents approximately two hundred performances of classic and new plays on its Main and Nikos Stages, Free Theatre, Cabaret, and countless readings, workshops, and other special events including a program for youngsters in North Adams called the Greylock Theatre Project. Since the Festival was founded in 1954, many WTF productions have transferred to Broadway, Off-Broadway and to regional theatres around the nation. Of equal import, WTF's many training programs offer nearly two hundred aspiring theater artists and managers an opportunity to study acting or serve as interns with professional designers, directors and administrators. The mission of the Williamstown Theatre Festival is to:
Produce classic and new plays with distinction and verve, and to present artists with production opportunities and challenges seldom available elsewhere.
Provide a training program in which emerging theater talents collaborate with accomplished mentors in a vital, professional and educational atmosphere.
Create and present programs that have the potential to serve and engage a diverse community.
Williams College
Established in 1793 with funds bequeathed by Colonel Ephraim Williams, the college is private, residential, and liberal arts, with graduate programs in the history of art and in development economics. The undergraduate enrollment is approximately 2,000 students. Fraternities were phased out beginning in 1962. Coeducation was adopted in 1970. The school color is purple. The mascot is the Purple Cow. There are three academic divisions (humanities, sciences, social sciences), 24 departments, 33 majors, plus concentrations and special programs. The student faculty ratio is 8:1. The academic year consists of two four-course semesters plus a one-course January term. Williamstown is located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, 135 miles from Boston and 165 miles from New York City.
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Golf and Tennis
Taconic Golf Course, Williams Tennis Courts
Many a visitor innocently remarks after his first round at Taconic, 'My goodness, where has this Ross gem been hiding?' Located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Taconic never fails to impress the first time visitor. The only surprise is learning that Donald Ross had nothing to do with it but rather full credit belongs to the little known New England design firm of Wayne Stiles & John Van Kleek. Stiles, who was a low single figure amateur player, was a member at Brae Burn, a fine Ross course outside Boston. He played there countless times and by the start of WWI, he was more interested in golf course design than in his Boston-based landscape profession. In 1924, he formed a partnership with John Van Kleek, another landscape professional. According to noted Stiles historian Gary Sherman, Stiles & Van Kleek built more than 60 courses between 1924 and 1932, mostly in New England (though Van Kleek was based in St.Petersburg, Florida). Like such Ross gems as Holston Hills and Mid Pines, Taconic enjoys a great naturalness with an absence of any heavy handedness by man. This is accomplished largely through their routing in which they found so many natural green sites within the 130 acre property. Many of the greens are located atop a knoll or hillock. The college maintains both hard and clay courts available to the general public by modest fee.
Wuabeeka Golf Course
Welcome to Waubeeka Golf Links, quite possibly the most challenging, beautiful and memorable 6,000 yards you'll ever encounter. Pub Links Magazine, May 2005 issue, just awarded Waubeeka with an honorable mention on places to play in MA. We are very proud to be in the company with five very awesome courses as an honorable mention and trending to the top ten out of hundreds of MA courses! Golf Boston Magazine ranks us #35 in Massachusetts, and New England Golf Journal Magazine puts us at #93 out of 700 public courses in the six-state area. That's quite a tribute to the golfing experience here at Waubeeka. But course rankings can't convey the incomparable scenery, with 360-degree vistas of the Berkshire mountains and peaceful country farms. Many have suggested that's why they find the golf so challenging - it's hard to concentrate on your game. We don't disagree.
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Museums
Coming soon...
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Neighborhoods
Williamstown
The world famed Clark Art Institute, the world class Williamstown Theatre Festival and Williams College Museum of Art are the jewels in the crown of the community nestled in a picturesque valley surrounded by majestic mountains where the Berkshires meet the Green Mountains of Vermont. The town is centered around Williams College which, founded in 1793, has attracted alumni and those seeking the combination of sophistication and tranquility the area has to offer.
Southern Vermont
Williamstown borders Vermont and many choose to live just across the line attracted by larger properties, former farms in many cases, and the cachet of Vermont. Rural and scenic where change happens at the pace of molasses in winter, Vermont offers its own flavor so appealing to many - the sweet smell of fresh baked homemade pies at the Apple Barn, the sounds of cows on the hillsides, the sign of maple sugaring in late winter remind of all of the past so rich in tradition and values.
North Adams, MA
A former industrial town built along the banks of the Hoosac River, North Adams is in the middle of a complete make-over in to a small city of historic brick mills now converted to more upscale uses such as the world class MASSMOCA museum of modern art, artists, urban escapees and a college of its own. North Adams combines the flavor of a small city with the safety and beauty of the Berkshires.
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Preserves and Parks
Mt. Greylock State Preserve
Mt. Greylock State Reservation encompasses more than 12,500 acres of mountain including the summit at 3,491' (the state's tallest peak), forest, valleys and streams spread across six different towns in northwestern Berkshire County (North Adams, Adams, Cheshire, Lanesborough, Williamstown and New Ashford). It features a unique collection of CCC-era buildings as well as the Veterans War Memorial Tower, a glowing beacon on the northern Berkshire horizon. A portion of the Appalachian Trail, a 2100 mile footpath running from Maine to Georgia, crosses the summit. The once popular Thunderbolt Ski Trail, site of the U.S. Eastern Amateur Ski Association Championships in 1938 and 1940, is now a well-used hiking trail.
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Theaters
Coming soon...
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