STOCKBRIDGE — Two homes on one of this town’s most prominent roads are for sale after the philanthropists who owned them died, leaving behind two very different properties.
The late Lola and Edwin Jaffe’s mid-century modern home at 23 Prospect Hill Road on 57 acres is for sale with a listing price of $4.899 million. It’s been on the market for less than 100 days.
The late Assadour Tavitian’s home, which bears a striking resemblance to cottages from the Gilded Age, is now listed at $9.95 million. It’s been on the market for close to 300 days. The original listing price was $12.5 million. The price drop was made within the last 45 days.
It's a tale of two houses on one of the most scenic roads in Stockbridge and among the most expensive on the Berkshire market right now. If the Tavitian estate fetches its asking price of $9.95 million, it would appear to be the highest price paid for a private home in Berkshire County, a position held by the the $9.8 million sale of the historic Elm Court estate in Stockbridge in July 2012.
The Berkshire Eagle was recently given a tour of the Tavitian property and learned the history behind the former owners' who once called Stockbridge home.
A home with a 'rich legacy of culture'
The Jaffes’ son, Bob Jaffe, explained how the couple came to build in Stockbridge in a video showcasing the property. His eldest brother, Walter Jaffe, was placed in an apprenticeship at the former Berkshire Theatre Festival in 1966.
“My parents brought him up here and got him settled and immediately fell in love with the area,” Bob Jaffe said in the video. “It wasn’t long before they started looking for property. I remember coming up here and seeing nothing except a big open field and a well in the middle of it.”
He said they decided to site the house deep into the property “because they loved being surrounded by the nature that was around them and the mountains."
The house was built in 1968, with Bob Jaffe becoming the first summer-long tenant after he, too, won an apprenticeship at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
Lola and Edwin Jaffe spent mostly weekends at the Stockbridge house.
Still, “My mother had a tendency to spend the whole summer up here,” Bob Jaffe said, and after Edwin Jaffe sold the family business, J&J Corrugated Box Corp. in 1986, “They just became more and more attached to this area,” moving in full-time in the late 1980s.
The two took active roles in the community, with Edwin Jaffe as founding chair of Berkshire South Regional Community Center and Lola Jaffe founding the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, both in Great Barrington.
“This house has a long, rich legacy of culture,” Bob Jaffe said. “Any number of people that have been entertained here that were musicians at Tanglewood, conductors at Tanglewood, actors at the Berkshire Theater Festival, or performers at the Mahaiwe, they’ve all enjoyed this house and been here and loved the serenity of it.”
Edwin Jaffe died in 2007; Lola Jaffe died in 2021. The house now belongs to the Lola E. Jaffe Revocable Trust.
Nancy Cole, senior vice president of Compass LLC, is the listing agent for Jaffe’s home, which sits a quarter mile off the road.
“Prospect Hill is such a special road in Stockbridge. I feel that some of the most beautiful properties in Stockbridge with views are up on that road,” Cole said. “For anyone who really enjoys culture, recreation and beautiful, beautiful scenery, this property has all of that.”
She mentioned the patio, two swimming pools, tennis court and a playground created by a designer who designed playgrounds in New York City. The property has rare specimen trees, as well.
The Jaffe home has 16 rooms in 8,200 square feet. It has seven bedrooms, including a first-floor master bedroom, five full bathrooms and two half-baths.
With floor-to-ceiling windows in some of the spaces, there is plenty of light, said Cole, yet never a “baked-in feeling.”
She said the house, designed by architect John Rogers, is cozy in the winter. With multiple sliding glass doors, there is cross ventilation with little need to turn on the air conditioning in summer.
“We have had good amount of interest,” Cole said, adding that's come from New York City, Boston and the Hudson Valley. “It just has everything you could ever imagine.”
'A gorgeous property'
The Tavitian property of approximately 6.2 acres includes a guest house adjacent to Naumkeag, owned by the Trustees of Reservations. The sale won't include the home on the other side of the property formerly owned by Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick, who owned The Red Lion Inn. Tavitian purchased that as the headquarters of the Tavitian Foundation.
Born in Armenia, Aso Tavitian, as he was known, was the co-founder of SyncSort, one of the first software development companies to emerge after IBM unbounded its software. He served on the boards of the former Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown.
In 1995, he established the Tavitian Foundation, with goals of strengthening the governance of the Republic of Armenia; supporting educational opportunities for people of Armenian ethnicity; supporting research on issues of significance for a globalized world; and supporting the arts.
The sale of Tavitian's home will benefit the foundation and charities that he supported, said Patrice Melluzzo, broker associate at William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty.
The main house embraces the side of a hill. It has 18 rooms, five bedrooms, six full bathrooms and three half-bathrooms. It has nine fireplaces, two staircases and an elevator. There is an outdoor pool, an indoor gym, multiple kitchens and a wine cellar.
Melluzzo invited The Eagle to tour the property, which was designed by Swanke Hayden Connell Architects and Peter Pennoyer Architects and was built over four years in the 1990s. It was technically not a tear-down, as one wall of the previous house was left standing.
Much of the house's mass is hidden from the front entrance, with a relatively modest approach of a few steps.
On walking in, a visitor is drawn to look out to Monument Mountain through a two-story set of windows with a classical arch. There is parquet floor under foot and a fireplace in that entrance hall.
There are multiple studies and libraries, including one devoted to music, a second devoted to art and media, and a small circular room on the ground level known as the Zodiac room, with floor inlaid with the signs of the Zodiac.
The main kitchen has a breakfast room with views of Monument Mountain. There are French doors from that room and from the dining room leading out to the central stone terrace.
On the third floor, there is a suite with a kitchenette along with rounded dormer windows.
he main kitchen has a breakfast room with views of Monument Mountain. There are French doors from that room and from the dining room leading out to the central stone terrace.
On the third floor, there is a suite with a kitchenette along with rounded dormer windows.
The master bedroom on the second floor has a his-and-hers dressing room beside it with a built-in vanity on her side. Each guest bedroom has its own bathroom.
Fireplaces have carved woodwork surrounding the mantles and there is extensive tile work in the main kitchen and butlers' pantries. A circular back staircase leads from the top-most floor down to the ground level.
While the house was substantially built in the 1990s, the detail in the crown molding and craftsmanship of the woodwork calls to mind the grand homes of a much earlier era.
Of the rooms, “They’re architecturally designed to be a perfect space and not overwhelming,” Melluzzo said. “It’s truly an honor to represent such a gorgeous property.”
Jane Kaufman is Community Voices Editor at The Berkshire Eagle. She can be reached at [email protected] or 413-496-6125.
