IT WAS MERYL AND ED MANDELBAUM’S twin boys who led them to the Berkshires, having announced that they wanted to go to sleep-away camp the summer they were 8 years old. They’re 21 now, and the family has been spending time in the Berkshires ever since. So when the couple happened upon an unusual property near Great Barrington on a real estate website five years ago, they knew it was time to buy. Meryl says: “My husband fell instantly in love with it.”

The property, situated on 200 feet of lakefront, was once a campground and included three cottages the original owners had rented out for generations, as well as several outbuildings. The place was in dire need of attention, so the Mandelbaums hired Ritch Holben of RhDesign in New Marlborough to help them rehabilitate it.