Veltin Studio was donated by alumni of the Veltin School, a school for girls in New York with a highly respected visual arts department. As the plaque just outside the entrance attests, this studio was used by poet Edwin Arlington Robinson during most of the 24 summers he spent at MacDowell. Perhaps most famously, Thornton Wilder put the finishing touches on his play Our Town in Veltin Studio in the summer of 1937.
Rustic in appearance, the studio is simply designed and solidly constructed of fieldstone. Multi-paned casement windows light the interior, while log rafters and tremendous wall plates cut from tree trunks — their round ends extending under the eaves — support a peaked red slate roof.
Inside, the essentials can be found: a large work desk with a dictionary and thesaurus, a Mason and Hamlin piano, a chair by the fireplace, and a daybed. The tombstones provide a connection to the artists who’ve worked here before, while the open windows bring in birdsong and the scents of the forest.
