Perpetuity is not forever
AT THE UNVEILING of his family's plan to turn Springlawn Mansion in Lenox into a hotel, James Jurney Jr. put his finger on the most engaging aspect of the old estate: ''The magic of Springlawn is the back lawn."
Jurney speaks with directness. While the building is attractive from the front, he said, the true splendor of its design and site does not become obvious until one passes through the entrance hall, out the back of the building, and down to the foot of the lawn. Turning back and gazing up, there it is: the mansion on the hill.
You are welcome to take this walk yourself: Thanks to a historic preservation and conservation restriction for which Massachusetts taxpayers paid $500,000, the property is open to the public.
The state made the deal with property owner Shakespeare & Company in June 2000. In exchange for the half-million dollar boost to the perennially strapped theatrical group, the pact established an open space buffer between historic downtown Lenox and the company's bustling campus. It limited use of the mansion to residential and theatrical uses, ordered that the historic facades remain intact, and required public walking trails. The agreement was to bind all future owners of the property in perpetuity. It turns out that ''perpetuity" may be defined as ''until a better offer comes along."
Last summer, James Jurney Sr. purchased the Springlawn Mansion and 15 additional acres for $3.3 million from Shakespeare & Company. A transplanted motelier from Myrtle Beach, S.C., Jurney Sr. made it clear it was his family's intention to create a ''luxury boutique resort" with a restaurant, swimming pool, tennis courts, and a formal garden.
The public would no longer be welcome to the ''magic" spot on the lawn, but the Jurneys would be willing to create a walking trail through the woods, around the far side of a ledgy wooded hillock and through a swampy thicket to a pond and then on to the street. What about the state's restrictions on the property, which clearly prohibit this vision? According to Jurney Sr., that was a ''gamble."
Including language in the deed that promised $600,000 more to Shakespeare & Company if the prohibitions were lifted was one way to better the odds.
Springlawn Mansion is a vestige of the Gilded Age, a time when magnates and robber barons erected sumptuous ''cottages" in the Berkshires while the vast majority of the people scratched and clawed and tugged their forelock.
The scales by which scratching and clawing are measured have changed, but things are not so different today. South Berkshire seems in danger of being reduced to a stop on the lifestyle circuit for the rich. There are many good people on this circuit. However unwittingly, their appetites are creating a new societal stratification, one that obliterates the humble character and soul of a place and turns communities into ''destinations" where the sushi is to die for.
Along with their exquisite design sense and ambitious vision, the Jurney family appears to have a collective eagerness to do things the right way. They are hard-working and transparent in their goals. They have hired a skilled team of respected professionals to help take them through the legal and permitting thickets.
With the charm offensive launched in Lenox, next stop is Boston, where the folks at the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts Historical Commission will review the family's request to undo the restrictions.
The request to turn public land into private gold will hardly come in a vacuum. The state Constitution was amended in 1972 to require approval of two-thirds of the members of both Legislative houses before any public conservation lands can be converted to development purposes. Once a rare occurrence, these so-called ''Article 97" land transfers have become relatively commonplace. A 2001 MassPIRG study found that 40 parcels of public land had been turned over to private developers in the three previous years.
If this turns out to be Springlawn's fate, life will change for Lenox seniors and dog-walkers. After entering the grounds on the new trail from Old Stockbridge Road, the walker will catch a quick glimpse of the mansion and gardens before being led into the woods and around the back of that ledgy little hill.
The Jurneys' representatives have taken pains to point out that the rocky hill will be preserved, but will not be open to the public: too dangerous. What danger is it, one might ask, that we will hear the thwock of a tennis ball coming from the grounds of the boutique resort, but that we will not see the players, nor they us?
Tad Ames is the president of the Berkshire Natural Resources Council.
