Stage a Playful Escape in the Berkshires

Hotel on North Accommodations
Credit: Kim Knox Beckius When a hotel promises “Quirks” on its website menu, it’s a dead giveaway this won’t just be a place to plop your head for a few nights. A renovated late-19th-century department store, Hotel on North sits smack in the midst of Pittsfield, Massachusetts’ walkable downtown arts district. Its design preserves the building’s character while transforming brick walls and wood and tiled floors into a gallery for contemporary creations. You’ll find a cocktail table for two inside the original, curlicued metal elevator: It’s a favorite backdrop for selfies. In the hotel’s one-of-a-kind shop, Dory & Ginger, you’ll swoon for stylish home and gift items. There’s a ping-pong table for old-school competitive fun in the game room, and the second-floor atrium is so comfy, inviting, and overstocked with books and board games, you’ll be tempted to stay in and relive childhood days, when endless time to read and roll the dice was part of summer’s magic. Venture outdoors, though, because “Act 1” of this escapade takes place behind a curtain of fragrant pines in a treetop realm that would make even Tom Sawyer’s eyes pop. Ramblewild, less than 20 minutes away in Lanesborough, is a tree-to-tree adventure park deep within a 1,400-acre wood, and most of the exhilarating aerial challenges are far from child’s play. Jiminy Peak’s Mountain Adventure Park in nearby Hancock gets hearts of all ages racing, too, with summer-fun attractions including a mountain coaster, giant swing, alpine slide, and high-flying chairlift ride. If you prefer to get your outdoors on without leaving solid ground, Berkshire Bike and Board or Plaine’s in Pittsfield can set you up with  rental bikes for a ride along the scenic Ashuwillticook Rail Trail. Plans are in place to extend this wide, paved trail to Pittsfield, but for now, Cheshire is your starting point, and you can pedal all or part of the 11.2-mile route to Adams. At Hancock Shaker Village, just over five miles west of the hotel, you’ll step into the pure and simple rhythms of a community that relied upon the land. There is Wi-Fi throughout this living history museum and working farm: Unlike the Amish, the Shakers embrace technology. But you’ll feel as compelled to leave your cell phone out of reach as you did while biking or roaming through the trees. The adorable bleating of barnyard animals, the scent of overturned earth and the edibles it yields, the beauty of a round stone barn and furnishings built by hand, the peacefulness of Shaker holy sites reached via a vigorous Mt. Sinai climb—these are things to appreciate with your senses fully engaged. And, if you register for a Maker Day workshop or goat yoga, you’ll experience a level of joy that can’t be achieved by tapping a screen.