Southward from Lenox is the outer elevated rim of the "Stockbridge Bowl," a deep basin among the hills, and one can look down within this grand amphitheatre upon Lake Mahkeenac nestling there, with the rocky and chaotic top of the distant Monument Mountain closing the view beyond. There are attractive villas perched upon all the knolls and terraces surrounding this famous "Bowl," and one modest older mansion overlooks it among so much modern magnificence--Nathaniel Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables," the remains of which are still shown. Here he lived for a few years in a quaint little red wooden house, looking as if built in bits, and having a glorious view for miles away across the lake. Mrs. Hawthorne once described this house in a letter to her mother as "the reddest little thing, which looks like the smallest of ten-foot houses." Nearby is the farm where he got milk, the route to which he called the "milky-way." They have named the road leading out from Lenox to this house, in his honor, "Hawthorne Street." The view over the lake from its back windows was so enchanting that he was very proud of it, and Mrs. Hawthorne records that one day Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who then lived near Pittsfield, rode down to make a call. They insisted on his coming in "to get a peep at the lake through the boudoir window," while Hawthorne himself held the doctor's horse at the door. The humorist, on returning, acknowledged the kindness with a pleasantry, saying, "Is there another man in all America that ever had such honor as to have the author of 'The Scarlet Letter' hold his horse?"