Who was Edith Wharton?
I never heard of her. And she said, Oh, this book is just a fluke. She was a rich woman. “All those years of being educated by women, and that’s all I heard of her.” Years later, Copeland said, when considering whether to take the position at the Edith Wharton Restoration, she purchased every book on Wharton she could find, Wharton’s own writing and books about her. She said, “I was knocked over by how extraordinary this woman was. It wasnt that she just was a great writer. She was a woman who created her own home. She was an authority on architecture and gardens. She loved books — her curiosity was insatiable. Anything she took up as an interest, she took to the professional level. “And then I felt this place HAD to be saved. It is the only example we have of Wharton putting her design principles into practice. I saw it as the Monticello of Massachusetts. Added to that was the fact that it’s one of the few, very few — I think there are only about 5 percent — of national historic la
