Supplements: The Nathan Abbott Farm, circa 1785, gracefully combines the original center-chimney colonial homestead on a ever-serene country lane in the prime Southern Berkshire town of Monterey, with elegant contemporary additions, perfectly striking the balance between a character & history-rich colonial-era home and country life in the Berkshires for the 21s ... (Read more) The Nathan Abbott Farm, circa 1785, gracefully combines the original center-chimney colonial homestead on a ever-serene country lane in the prime Southern Berkshire town of Monterey, with elegant contemporary additions, perfectly striking the balance between a character & history-rich colonial-era home and country life in the Berkshires for the 21st century.   Enter the home through the front entry hall and mud room into a generous foyer branching out to the formal dining room, the excellent kitchen overlooking the screened porch and landscaped grounds, a practical pantry, full bath and a living room. The unique and beautiful living room has an abundance of fine architectural features including a vaulted ceiling, custom millwork and cabinetry made in England, a bay window and window seat (a perfect place to curl up with a good book), and a fieldstone fireplace.  The living room has abundant light including through the wall of French doors overlooking the grounds.  Just above the living room, and accessed via a beautifully crafted staircase, is an office. Across the foyer is the formal dining room and this leads one to the original colonial center-chimney farmhouse.  The library features the original staircase, a Rumford fireplace, and ample bookshelves.  The beams are visible in the colonial timber-framed structure and lend character and history to the home. The family room adjoins the library through French doors and offers the 3rd of 5 fireplaces.  This warm and comfortable room glows with morning light reflecting off the butter yellow walls.  There is a perfect spots to play chess, read in front of the wood-burning fire, and for kids to play as the room is generous in size and adjoins the very large screened porch.  There is another original Rumford fireplace as well.  The screened porch offers panoramic views of the grounds, spring-fed ponds and has ample space for both living and dining areas. If you are a cook you will enjoy the fine kitchen, with excellent light and an enormous picture window, granite countertops, double ovens and a gas rangetop.   The island has room for countertop seating and between the kitchen and the screened porch is a breakfast nook large enough for 6 or more to eat comfortably at a farm table.  A unique feature of the kitchen is the original kitchen fireplace has a indoor fireplace grill.  A spacious laundry room/pantry and a full bath with jacuzzi tub round out the first floor amenities.   Upstairs is your classic center hallway with 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths, including a large master suite that shows the original beam construction, a sitting area and a remodeled master bath. The original stairway leads you down to the library. The office overlooks the great room and the grounds. With custom-milled furniture from England, and a seating area for when you need a break from the desk work. A full bath off the office and a door separating you from the bedrooms ensure you have the space and privacy if work is on the schedule. Sited on 30+ acres, the extraordinary grounds feature spring-fed ponds (including a large swim pond), extensive stonework, fields & woods.  While 30+ acres is significant acreage, your property is surrounded on 2 sides by a section of 12,000 acre Beartown State Forest.  In fact, most of the vast portions of the state forest may easily be accessed either abutting your property, or just a bit farther down Beartown Mountain Road.  There are hiking trails, ATV trails and 35 acre Benedict Pond for swimming, kayaking and canoeing. Camping is also offered seasonally pond side.  In the winter the action does not slow down. Snowmobiling, snowshoeing, XC skiing, or an afternoon ice skating is sure to keep you warm. Trail walking is not limited to the state forest though. Take a walk past the old stable to the trail that follows the edge of the property, around the icehouse and return to one of the three spring fed ponds. The largest pond is 8 feet deep and surrounded by a 4 foot stone retaining wall... perfect for enjoying a swim with family and friends. Colonial stonewalls outline the meadows and run deep into the woods, giving a hint of the vast pastures and fields that once existed here. Extensive stonework, wild fruit trees, and perennial gardens are just a few of the beautiful features of these extraordinary grounds. Additionally, the stable overlooking the meadow sets the scene from when there were horses in the fields. With one stall and space for hay and equipment it is currently being used to house the horse drawn carriage in the winter months, that graciously sits on the front lawn all summer. The detached over-sized two car garage offers storage above and room for two vehicles as well as a work area and a gardening bench. The history of the property has been carefully researched, back to the mid 1700's. The newspaper the "Berkshire Gleaner" wrote in their July 19, 1905 edition about "BEARTOWN HISTORY, The Original Settlers of Our Mountain District". Here is the excerpt specifically about this historic, and yet contemporary property: The next place was a small one of only some twenty acres. This is the Marley Farm, owned a half-century ago by Luther Marley. It was small compared to that of the other farms, especially that of Amos Langdon who owned or controlled from 400 to 500 acres and kept 75 or more head of stock but which did not prevent his large family of boys from moving west. Luther Marley came by inheritance into the farm, so that the family ownership is traced from the early part of the last century to some twenty or twenty five years ago, when Marcy died, then an old man. He was a deacon of the old church, to which he was very faithful and was liked by all his neighbors. His legs were twisted by rheumatism and he had a curious walk, his feet turning out. The farm was sold to one of the McManus' boys and is owned by James McManus, with three others today. Between the McManus place and the next, Parson Miner's farm, is the cellar hole of another house of ancient times of which all trace is lost. Yet it was nearly 80 years later, long after the McManus family had sold and a generation of the Cambern family had lived in the home that the Seigerman family captured the essence of this old home: "Our first steps over the broad and mossy doorstone into the original core of what had been a one-room shelter took us back two hundred years. From that moment, we were in love -- with the house itself, its history and tradition, and with the idea of continuing our life as a family under its eaved and angled roof." They discovered 19th century mantles over native fieldstone fireplaces, wide board and wood-pegged floors, hand-hewn beams and barn siding walls. They perfectly captured one essential part of why those of us love, and live in old homes. It was easy for them to peer through their mullioned windows and picture the Revolutionary soldiers who trudged up the same dirt road hauling cannons to Albany... and across the meadow to the stone walls edging the field... Those Revolutionary soldiers had seen the same stone walls that still stand today. Those stone walls can be your stone walls. This property can be your captivating and historic colonial-era homestead, yet without compromising any of the features of a contemporary estate. The location is superb, minutes to Great Barrington, yet on a town maintained country lane with the same character of 200 years earlier. Spring-fed ponds, open pasture, woodlands traced throughout with stone walls and Beartown State Forest as your neighbor.