Editor’s note: This article by Derek Carson was published by the Bennington Banner on April 23.
[S]HAFTSBURY — Bennington College has announced that the Robert Frost Stone House Museum will reopen with a public ceremony next week.
On Thursday, May 3, from 4 to 6 p.m., the college has invited the public to participate in the reopening, which will gives guests the opportunity to “check out this beautiful historic landmark and learn about the integration of the museum into the college life.”
There will also be a closed event this week for members of the campus community. More information about the event and about the plans for the museum moving forward will be announced in the coming weeks.
The Friends of Robert Frost, the organization that had operated the museum, announced last September that it would be donating the house, seven acres of property, and two barns to the college without encumbrances. At the time, a spokesperson for Bennington College said that the Stone House would continue to be a historic house and museum, while also being incorporated into the college’s literature and writing programs.
“We identified the need for a succession plan many years ago, reminding me of a line from a film: ‘We’re only passing through history.’ This house is history,” said Carole Thompson, Friends of Robert Frost founder and executive director, in September. “We approached Bennington College with this idea in May, and have been very pleased with their enthusiasm. I’m sure Frost would approve.”
Frost purchased the house in 1920 and lived there until 1929. He was living in the house when he won his first Pulitzer Prize, as well as when he composed many of his poems, including “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
The property was preserved and opened as a house museum 15 years ago thanks to donations from Peter Stanlis and a grant from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. During that time it welcomed more than 50,000 visitors from all over the world.
“Building on the College’s storied literary history and our commitment to inquiry-based education, Bennington is a perfect place to explore Frost’s legacy, to ask new questions about his work, and to bring it into contemporary conversations,” said Bennington College President Mariko Silver.
“In addition to continuing as an historic house and museum, the College will use the Stone House Museum for educational purposes, incorporating it into its acclaimed literature and writing programming, which brings the nation’s leading poets, academics, and students together for lectures and rigorous writing instruction,” said the college in a release.
“The Frost House will provide enhanced learning and event space for Bennington’s literature efforts, including the Masters of Fine Arts in Writing program; The Bennington Review, the College’s literary journal; and Poetry at Bennington, a residency series that brings award-winning poets to campus for readings.”
“Frost remains one of our country’s major literary figures who represented for several generations what it was to be an American poet,” said poet Mark Wunderlich, director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, the college’s low-residency MFA in writing program.
“It’s time to look again at Frost’s work for what it is — tough-minded poems that are haunted, pessimistic, stately, and which belie great self-awareness on behalf of the poet who wrote them,” he said.
