A little "Dirty Dancing" at the Lake Lure Inn

Lake Lure officials were approached in 1986 by film producers wanting to film an entire movie in the town. The proposal was turned down, as certain landmarks would have been completely reconstructed. I’ll bet those officials were kicking themselves later when that film went on to become a top-grossing movie and prompt three decades in home video sales… the movie in question being Dirty Dancing. Eventually the 1987 classic starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey was partially filmed in Lake Lure, although primary filming was conducted at Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, VA.

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Set in the fictitious Kellerman’s Resort in the Catskills, Frances “Baby” Houseman falls in love with dance instructor Johnny Castle. The lake and river scenes were mainly filmed around the western end of the lake (near the marina), while the famous dance practice scenes were shot on a specially-constructed platform in the lake. It turns out the water can be chilly in October… Good thing for Patrick it wasn't a cold day in February!

Located just down the road from the marina is the 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa. With a backdrop of mountains, the rooms overlook the Town Center Walkway and offer views of Lake Lure and Morse Park. Having undergone an extensive renovation in 2005, visitors have a choice of guest rooms, suites and bungalows, and features include a spa, restaurant and lounge.

Not only did the actors, producers and other staff stay at the 1927 Lake Lure Inn while filming in 1986, but some of the restaurant scenes were filmed in the Inn’s Veranda Restaurant and the mirrored practice room is now Roosevelt Hall. There’s a nod to the fame Dirty Dancing has brought with a Swayze Suite (though the actor actually slept in Room 205), a Jennifer Grey Suite, Baby's Bungalow and Johnny's Cabin, but other famous guests who have stayed at the hotel include Franklin D. Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter on their honeymoon.

Today the hotel is filled with antiques, paintings and old photographs dotting the walls. In the lobby is a rare collection of antique, upright disc music boxes, including an authentic Regina, Symphonion, Polyphon, Stella and Fortuna. The keys on a player piano depress as if touched by a ghost, while in the corner an old Badenia stands, behind whose closed cabinet doors can be found a full orchestra: piano, violin and cello pipes, orchestra bells, snare drums, a Chinese cymbal and xylophone. The rooms are clean and comfortable, the décor nostalgic and stately.

The scenes of Swayze and friends dancing in their cabins were filmed not far away at the former Chimney Rock Camp for Boys. While visitors to Lake Lure can still step into the movie in the Inn’s Veranda Restaurant, they can’t visit the camp cabins as the land is now a gated residential development called Firefly Cove. The 54-acre site's 41 plots initially cost $600,000 - $1.5 million... and that's just the lot! The people who built their house where the dining hall used to stand (and Baby takes her first dance steps with Johnny) are Dirty Dancing fans, and actually incorporated the hall's foundation stone into the design of their home.

On the east end of the lake on the Lake Lure Golf & Beach Resort golf course is another site that was used in the film. There is a sign at the hole where Baby asks her father for money for an abortion for Johnny's dance partner, but be prepared to play a round of golf to see it. The steps on which Baby practices her moves are still on a hillside somewhere in the area as well.

Patrick Swayze died of pancreatic cancer in 2009, but his legacy lives on; not only in the Dirty Dancing Festival that takes places annually in Lake Lure, but also in the rooms of The 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa. Dirty Dancing fans should not miss this corner of Lake Lure in their explorations, however it doesn’t take a movie buff to appreciate the historical and aesthetic qualities of this grand hotel. And hey, if it’s Valentine’s Day? Make sure you sing a few bars! (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life…

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Baby: Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you.

Winter on Lake Lure

The bright blue waters of Lake Lure are highly visible from the heights of Chimney Rock, appearing almost turquoise in the monochrome greys and browns of winter. Once you descend from the mountain it becomes obvious the Lake is far bigger than expected, stretching along the Hickory Nut Gap and Buffalo Creek drainages like a giant letter X.

Once home to the Cherokee and Catawba Indians, the Gorge provides a natural gap that was used by early settlers to travel west through the mountains. It is even possible that the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto may have passed through the area in the 16^th century. In more recent times the gap was a popular travel and trade route. Then in the 1920’s while Dr. Lucious Morse was building up Chimney Rock into a tourist attraction he also turned his attention to the Gorge, where he imagined a resort community around a mountain lake – before there was even a lake!

In 1925 the construction of the Rocky Broad River dam began, and in 1927 the town of Lake Lure was incorporated around the new lake; however Morse’s development dreams were soon dashed along with the economy, and the family was barely able to hold on to the acreage that is now Chimney Rock State Park.

We had opted to explore the area over two days, and after waking up in The 1927 Lake Lure Inn & Spa to an overcast sky above the lake, we nevertheless bundled up to see what we could see. Our first stop was the old 1925 bridge over the Rocky Broad River. Residents rallied around the obsolete structure in 2010 when the replacement was being built just a hundred feet south, and successfully preserved it – for a garden. The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is less than five years old, but already has attracted national attention. With fairy gardens, sculptures and carefully tended beds covering the three-arched concrete structure, there was plenty to discover and examine, even in the winter.

I can imagine that spring and summer bring a cacophony of colors and smells, as well as crowds. Different sections are home to herb gardens, roses, artistic plantings and more, and a return visit in the summer is in order to see the garden’s full potential.

The garden also serves as a gateway to Lake Lure, the highway passing to the south of the lake with scenic vistas opening up every once in a while. The adjacent land is almost entirely private, the west end possibly the only exception. From the Flowering Bridge we walked to the playground, which is part of Morse Park, a peninsula jutting out into the lake with trails and a gazebo. A very romantic spot to spend Valentine’s Day, despite the bitter cold! The boys skipped stones across the ice, taking sticks to the edges in attempt to shatter the edges. The scenery (and cold!) was breathtaking, Chimney Rock visible in the far distance because of the American flag, and the rock balds on the north face of the gorge rising up alongside the lake.

The Town Center Walkway follows the contours of the highway and south shore for a short distance, from the Lake Lure Beach and Water Park, past the Lake Lure Inn & Spa to the intersection of Jack London Rd. The view of Morse Park is quite picturesque, and the beach, Inn and distant mountains provide interesting scenery along the way. A little ways farther you’ll find a toy train museum that might prove to be a welcome indoor attraction in inclement weather; we were sad to find it closed.

The highway continues to wind around the various drainages to the lake, private homes dotting the shore interspersed with the occasional inn or restaurant. The restaurant parking areas provided opportunities to pull off for views from different perspectives around the lake, and after the golf course the road curves in towards the Lake for one final time before continuing west along the Broad River towards Rutherfordton. (We didn’t get a chance to explore it, but just south of the golf course is the Donald Ross Nature Trail Park, with a wooded walking trail system developed on an unused portion of the municipal golf course.)

Although there are small roads winding all around the rest of the lake, it isn’t possible to drive completely around as there is an unconnected portion east of the Rumbling Bald portion of Chimney Rock State Park. Bald Mountain Lake and another golf course are located at the north tip of Lake Lure, edged by Buffalo Creek Park further north, while to the east are mostly private homes, a few resorts, and Upper & Lower Hickory Nut Lake.

Frozen toes and rumbling stomachs pulled us away from our explorations, back through the town of Lake Lure and on towards that of Chimney Rock. As we passed over the Rocky Broad River on the new bridge, the turquoise waters receded in the mirror like a mirage, the cloudy sky swallowing it up as the walls of the valley rose up around us.