For the first time in two years, The Friends of Mount Holyoke Range have returned the Summit House Sunset Concert Series to its namesake, Skinner State Park’s historic Summit House. 

The Summit House, which sits at a 935-foot elevation on top of Mount Holyoke and dates back to 1851, first served as a refreshment cabin and hotel for visitors to the summit. The house and surrounding land were donated to the commonwealth by Joseph Allen Skinner following the Great Hurricane of 1938.

“I’ve long felt that the Summit House is a building like no other in New England, a witness to both American and global history since it was first built in 1851,” said David Meuser, who has been organizing the Summit House Sunset Concert Series for over 10 years.

The building has undergone renovations several times since it began hosting the concert series. In the spring of 2010, state officials deemed the porch structurally unsafe and the building was sealed off to the public to undergo necessary updates. It reopened in 2014 after multiple construction delays. 

In 2022, the building closed once again for repairs to the porch, forcing the Summit House Sunset Concert Series to relocate temporarily to the Notch Visitor Center in South Amherst.

“After being closed to the public to make needed repairs to the porch of the Summit House at Skinner State Park, we’re thrilled to welcome back the Summit House Sunset Concert Series to the state park in partnership with the Friends of Mount Holyoke Range,” Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation Press Secretary Brenna Galvin said.

The Summit House Sunset Concert Series began in 1987 as a volunteer-run concert series with the goals of making the Summit House more available to the public, and to promote natural history education, land conservation and seasonal recreational activities.

The Summit House itself has been a defining feature of the concert series. “In terms of acoustics, the building itself has a unique resonance given the age of its wood and timbers, and many of our musicians have praised its warm sound quality,” Meuser said. “It’s like playing inside an enormous vintage piano situated on top of a mountain, with the only other sounds being the wind in the trees, the birds among them, and the occasional soaring airplane.”

Over the last 37 years, Meuser says the series has “sought to offer a wide range of musical genres, wherever possible representing a diversity of time periods and geographies, and always featuring musicians who call our area home.”

The 2024 series kicked off on Thursday, July 11, with a sold-out performance by Arcadia Viols. The series continues with four more concerts presented on Thursdays throughout July and August: surf-rockers SP4 on July 18, Irish music quintet Ardaigh on July 25 (indoor seating is already sold out, but 60 porch seats will be available day-of, at the gate), jazz and swing band The Hot Club of New England on Aug. 1, and Ugandan folk-fusion quartet Zikina on Aug. 8. All performances start at 7:30 p.m.

Advance tickets for all shows are $12 and are available until noon on the day of the show. Any remaining tickets, as well as porch seating tickets, will be available for sale at the gate after 6 p.m. and are $15 per person, cash only. Gates open at 6 p.m., and the Summit House opens at 6:45 p.m.

Due to the increased popularity of the series and limited parking available at the top of the mountain, Meuser asks “all concert goers to please carpool in as few vehicles as possible, sometimes with folks they've only just met. People can consolidate into fewer vehicles outside the entrance gate, or in the parking lot at the Halfway House. This can really make a difference in how smoothly the logistics of the evening go. And, you just may make some new friends!”

Picnicking is welcome as neither food nor beverages will be available for sale at the event. The Summit House is wheelchair accessible. All hikers/walkers should please carry flashlights.

UMass Amherst journalism student Paige Hanson is arts and features intern for the Gazette and Recorder.