Antique & Vintage Postcards

Butter-yellow clapboard and three proud dormers catch the afternoon light in this mid-century chrome view of Fernside, a beloved summer inn perched on the slopes of Mt. Wachusett in Princeton, Massachusetts — a retreat that drew Boston-area vacationers seeking cool mountain air and wide wrap-around porches long before the age of air conditioning. The two-and-a-half-story structure, with its bracketed porch columns, fire-escape ladder, and low wing of outbuildings stretching toward the left, radiates the unhurried charm of a New England country hotel in its prime. David Gourley's color photography — printed in the vivid "Photo O'Color" process — renders the scene with a warmth that catalogue photos never quite matched, making this card a genuine window into mid-century leisure travel in central Massachusetts.