By Laura Mars // Photos by Jimmy ienner, Jr. // Historical Photos Courtesy Millay Society
August 2022 Edition
In the Berkshire border town of Austerlitz, New York, sits Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Steepletop, the former 635-acre blueberry farm purchased in 1925 by Millay—one of America’s most respected poets—and husband Eugen Jan Boissevain. Looking for a refuge from Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, they fell in love with the property’s natural peace and privacy. Today, almost fully surrounded by state forest and undisturbed for decades, Steepletop is a National Historic Landmark and is pretty much how it was in Millay’s time, offering a similar refuge from the hustle and bustle of the big city and a pause from life in 2022.