* * Mountain Lake seeks to refurbish, renew, and refill

Just about everybody who’s been in Southwest Virginia for long has a memory of Mountain Lake and its resort hotel. Situated at 3900 feet elevation, the 50-acre, 100-foot deep lake formerly known as Salt Pond, and the hotel have been a treasured part of our local tourism industry for well over 150 years.

But sadly, in recent years, the lake has diminished to a mere puddle and the hotel, in the words of new General Manager Jeffrey Burrell, has become “tired.” But work is underway to restore both the lake and the resort to their former glories.

“It seemed to me,” Burrell said, “that it had seen its heyday a long time ago. The staff felt tired, the buildings felt tired, and it seemed way overdue for some love and attention. And innovation.” 

Burrell got into the hotel business after college in 1998, with stints at Disney World, the Hard Rock, and finally to the Weston in Beaver Creek, Colorado. He was recruited to manage Mountain Lake when longtime manger Buzz Scanland retired last year. “Once I got here and saw how pretty the property was,” Burrell said, “I was sold. The opportunity to turn a property like this… you can see the vision the owners had when they first built it, and the heritage behind it, that really rings for me.”

Burrell spoke about the movie Dirty Dancing, much of which was filmed at the Hotel over 25 years ago. “Dirty Dancing is a part of our history that needs to be respected and cherished – and no offense to the Dirty Dancing fans – but we hung our hat on it too long. We have 150 years of other history.

“When we looked at our current guests, we saw many of the same people coming again and again, with not enough new ones… and they were getting older.” Burrell said they needed to attract a new clientele.

He gave special mention and credit to Bob Donovan, who consulted on the refurbishment. Burrell said, “Donovan took me outside and put his arm around my shoulder and said to me, ‘Jeff, here’s an opportunity for a young guy like yourself to make your career.’

“In the hotel industry, it is so rare to find something like this. It is a huge challenge. We have to respect the history and the people who love this place for what it was, but at the same time, we have to harvest a new group of guests who have never been here.

Donovan was hired by the Foundation that owns Mountain Lake to study ways to increase revenues at the Hotel. His organization, the Urban Land Institute, was hired 18 months ago to make recommendations. Donovan, on a panel of five, came to study the situation. He said, “There was an incredible excitement about this place that had gone dormant over the years. There was enthusiasm. There is so much history here. Everybody loves the place. Everybody had such wonderful stories about it. My initial impression was that the Foundation should shut it down. But with the love we felt for it, we decided to put a plan together to save it.”

They quickly concluded their first order of business was re-filling the lake. They had to fully drain the lake, using huge diesel pumps the size of school busses, and then shuffle the lake bed and add dehydrated clay to get the bottom to seal. Burrell said, “We plugged four primary holes. There are still others, but we reduced the outflow by about 90%. It is already filling, and is higher than when I arrived in November. We expect it to be full again in 12 to 18 months, depending upon precipitation.”

The foundation invested around $150,000 in this effort. Once it fully fills, it will reach its natural spillway and will stabilize at that level.

“Task number two is repositioning the hotel,” Jeff continued. “It will now be called Mountain Lake Lodge. It conveys the repositioning of the hotel as more of an adventure property. It is taking advantage of our natural surroundings. It is layering in new types of activities, including a ropes course and an aerial adventure course, with climbing walls, rope bridges, zip lines, and those sorts of things. This will be a huge part of our new identity, getting people out of doors in new ways. Hiking. Bouldering. Rock climbing.

“We’ll be repositioning our restaurant, away from standard hotel fare and more towards featuring the region’s agricultural and cultural food heritage. We hired a new chef who will be focused on locally sourced, simply prepared good food.

“We are mindful of affordability. We don’t want to be a luxury hotel. We want to be accessible to everyone. Entrées at the restaurant will vary from $10 to $30. Our rooms will start at under $100 per night. We have only 101 rooms, but we have 25 different types of accommodations.”

Donovan said, “We want to bring the buzz back to the place that it had in its heyday. It will come back, grander than it has ever been. The phone lines are already lighting up.

“I heard so many stories. I spoke with a guy from Maryland who went to (Virginia) Tech. He proposed to his wife here. He said, ‘we went all the time; it was our favorite place.’ I heard story after story.”

Burrell spoke at length about their plans for activities, including local music, local cuisine, local artists and craftspeople. “The music here is amazing! The talent in the area is so rich. We will celebrate it.”

Both gentlemen expressed their perception of the love and support they’d received from the community. Jeff said, “There is a connection to this place that is beyond anything I have ever seen. I have met ladies in their eighties and nineties who have been coming here every year since their childhoods. Wow! It is moving. Everybody in the area has been great. Everybody wants us to be successful.”

Donovan, “There’s something about this place. It is truly magic.”