a bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it

Even Edith Wharton is not safe from foreclosure.

Since 2002, Ms. Copeland explained by phone this week, the Mount, which is open to the public — much of it has been restored in recent years to match the period when Wharton lived there — has been covering its operating expenses by borrowing from the Berkshire Bank in nearby Pittsfield. It now owes the bank some $4.3 million, and in mid-February, when it failed to meet a scheduled monthly payment of $30,000, the bank sent a notice that it intended to start foreclosing unless the default was remedied promptly, Ms. Copeland said.

To stay open, she added, the Mount needs to raise $3 million by March 24. “The bank has really been very patient,” she explained. “They’re eager to help us work this out.”

[...] Wharton lived at the Mount only until 1910, when her marriage to the troubled Teddy Wharton became unsalvageable, and she moved permanently to France. But the house, which she treasured in memory, was where she came into her own as a writer; it’s where she finished “The House of Mirth,” her breakthrough novel (part of whose profits paid for the Mount’s elaborate gardens) and got the inspiration for “Ethan Frome.” It is now on the register of National Historic Landmarks and is one of only a few such places associated with a woman and her accomplishments.