Stockbridge

Chamber of Commerce

Stockbridge protects its old New England Main Street, with the Red Lion Inn on the corner. On the right weekend, you might see a parade of coaches and four driving up Route 7 — or classic cars lining downtown to re-create a Norman Rockwell painting.

Norman Rockwell lived here, and his museum preserves his studio along the Housatonic River. It has grown now to exhibit many contemporary artists and illustrators alongside his work.

Contemporary artists gather here. Sculptors bring work to the gardens and grounds at Chesterwood, the museum of the sculptur of the Lincoln Memorial. And for anyone who wants to get their hands into the clay, IS183 art school teaches workshops and classes in ceramics, painting, jewelry and more, and on some Friday nights the studios open for amateur artists to experiment over a local brew.

Stockbridge is also known now for summer theater on the main stages of Berkshire Theatre Group, where plays continue to open before they move on to Broadway and Off Broadway, and for Gilded Age mansions and summer people, including Naumkeag, the Choate family’s estate — a museum now with community gatherings in its gardens on summer nights and festivals of lights in winter and tulips in spring.