Applegate Inn

Are you a fan of abstract art? Painting, frescos and sculpture? Well, very close to our Lenox Bed and Breakfast is the home-turned-museum of George L.K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen. Their home is on a 46-acre estate in Lenox, MA and features not only their work but their collection of American and European modern and cubist art and sculpture.

About the Frelinghuysen Morris House & Studio in Lenox

George L. K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen were prolific abstract artists who began their careers in the late 1930s. A remarkably modern and contemporary couple, they were at the leading edge of national and international art scenes. As collectors and intellectuals, they created a Berkshire home close to our Stockbridge Bed and Breakfast that reflected their aesthetic tastes and styles. Frelinghuysen and Morris are today being widely rediscovered and evaluated as significant figures in the history of American art.

George L. K. Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen, prolific abstract artists since the late 1930s, were a remarkable couple at the leading edge of the national and international art scene. Collectors and intellectuals, they created a Berkshire home that reflected their aesthetic worlds. Frelinghuysen and Morris are today being

Suzy Frelinghuysen and her husband George L.K. Morris on the marble stairway of their newly finished house in Lenox, MA, circa 1941.

widely rediscovered and evaluated as significant figures in the history of American art. Now you can tour their world, preserved just as it was when they created it.

In 1929, George L.K. Morris traveled to Paris and studied with Fernand Leger and Amedee Ozenfant. Upon his return to America, Morris wanted to duplicate the white-stucco walled, notched roof, open-spaced studio. In 1930, with the help of Boston architect and Yale classmate George Sanderson, he designed and built his studio on a portion of his parents’ Lenox, Massachusetts estate, “Brookhurst.” It was the first Modern structure to be built in New England.

The following is from the Frelinghuysen web site:

“In 1941, now married to artist and singer Suzy Frelinghuysen, Morris chose a local architect, John Butler Swann to design a house which would be integrated into the existing studio. Swann admired Modernism and had spent time in the indigenous buildings of Arizona and New Mexico. A two story stucco and glass block house with a colorful mural by Morris connecting the house and garage was built. Cost overruns forced Morris to consign a Picasso, “The Poet”, for sale. Peggy Guggenheim bought it for $4,500 and jump-started her museum in Venice.

Local Lee marble was used in the foyer; an Argentinean leather floor was placed in the living room. Frelinghuysen and Morris enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City to learn the ancient art of fresco. Morris executed the frescoes in the living room; Frelinghuysen created her designs in the dining room. Frelinghuysen and Morris chose furniture by Modern masters Frankl, Deskey, and Aalto to complete the harmony of art, architecture and design.

Upon her death in 1988, Suzy Frelinghuysen left instructions that the House & Studio and art collection be used for an educational purpose and the co-trustees, nephew T. Kinney Frelinghuysen and Christine Beshar, established a 501C3 charitable foundation. After receiving approval from the two towns of Stockbridge and Lenox, on which the 46 acre estate lies, the House & Studio opened for visitation in 1998.”

Now, when one visits the Frelinghuysen Morris Home, you traverse the home with all of its original furnishings. You can view the works of Morris and Frelinghuysen throughout, but also walk right up to the works of some of their more famous colleagues and contemporaries including Picasso, Braque, Leger and Gris. As Director Kinney Frelinghuysen notes, “The integration of living quarters with the immediacy of a concentration of works of art is a pleasurable and unexpected way to propel visitors into early 20th century art.”

We encourage you, if you are a modern and contemporary art buff, to visit the Frelinghuysen Morris Home while staying with us at our Lenox Bed and Breakfast!