Stonewall Resort in Walkersville, West Virginia is located within Stonewall Jackson Resort State Park surrounded by mountains at the foothills of the Alleghenies and bordered by a 26-mile-long lake. Much newer and less well known than the state’s luxury Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, it offers more economical accommodations at a 198 room 1920’s style Adirondack lodge or lakeside cottages, along with spa services, golf, water sports, outdoor recreation, and conference facilities.
The resort has the unique feature of being inside a 1,900-acre state park which originated as part of a flood-control project and now draws visitors who sometimes come just to use the park. The park, which waives the entrance fee for guests at the resort, has some 150,000 visitors each year. The park and resort name come from Confederate General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson whose boyhood home was in that region of north central West Virginia.
Resort Evolved From Flood Plagued River Town
Yet another unusual aspect of Stonewall Jackson Lake is that it sits where the small river town of Roanoke, West Virginia once was. Roanoke was subjected to severe and uncontrollable flooding for decades, and ultimately in the 1980s the state’s government stepped and dammed the local West Fork River.
“The second-largest lake in the state was created in 1990 when the Stonewall Jackson Dam controlled the flow of the West Fork River, one of two tributaries that eventually form the Monongahela Rivers,” Mike Bires wrote June 26, 2010 in the Beaver County Times of Beaver, Pennsylvania in “Bires: ‘Other’ Stonewall a slice of West Virginia heaven.” “To pay for the costs of the dam, West Virginia legislators drew up plans for a resort on Stonewall Jackson Lake.”
“The comfortably contemporary resort, along with the defunct village it replaced, makes a good metaphor for West Virginia today,” Craig Stoltz wrote in “The Last Resort” in the Washington Post of September 22, 2004. “The Mountain State’s mill and coal towns are being transformed by time and economics into verdant getaways, creating an extremely efficient catch basin for vacationers from Virginia, Maryland, D.C., Pennsylvania and Ohio.”
Other Accommodations at Stonewall Beyond Lodge Rooms
Stonewall Resort is operated by Benchmark Hospitality. For those who would prefer to stay somewhere other than the lodge, the resort also has lakefront cottages and houseboats for rent. The ten cottages are on or close to Stonewall Jackson Lake’s shore and have two, three, or four bedrooms and full kitchens. A total of four houseboats are available for a minimum of two nights or longer and enable cruising of the lake, which has 82 miles of shoreline.
In addition, 40 campsites are available around the lake for RVs or other camping vehicles.
The resort offers free lake excursions (with a cash bar) on its 100-passenger boat, Little Sorrel, named for “Stonewall” Jackson’s horse.
Arnold Palmer Designed Golf Course
For golfers, an 18-hole Arnold Palmer style course that opened at the resort in 2002, with a golf teaching facility, has been highly ranked by Golf Week magazine and Golf Digest. Amid the mountain setting, the course encompasses a wetlands marsh, water, hardwoods, evergreens, mounded sand bunkers, and various elevations.
Overlooking the course as well as the lake and lodge is one of Stonewall’s restaurants, Lightburn’s, which doubles as the clubhouse and is open from April through October. Seating is available inside and out on a deck with a panoramic view of the area’s rolling hills.
Inside the main lodge are another restaurant, Stillwaters, and a pub, TJ Muskies. The restaurant features the region’s “New Appalachian Cuisine” with dishes made from locally grown produce and has lakeside patio dining in warm weather.
For those with boats the resort has a 374 slip marina, but also rentals of kayaks, paddle boats, and pontoons for fishing. The lake has largemouth bass with both day and nighttime fishing from the water and shore.
Biking and hiking, including mountain biking, are other activities available in the state park with access to an 18,000 acre wilderness management area.
The resort’s spa has massage and body therapies and spa treatments (for two if requested) and salon services such as skin and facial care as well as manicures and pedicures.
Other Nearby Activities Away From Stonewall
Some visitors to Stonewall have found little to do aside from what the resort and park offer. However, some nearby places are Jackson’s Mill, the Jackson family farmstead now run by the Extension Service of West Virginia University and the first state 4-H camp in the United States; the West Virginia Museum of American Glass in Weston; and Arthurdale, the first New Deal planned subsistence homestead community founded by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1934.
By car, Stonewall is located two miles off Interstate 79 at exit 91, south of Clarksburg and north of Charleston, West Virginia. It is approximately a two-hour drive from Pittsburgh, four hours from both Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, and four and a half hours from Washington, D.C.
John Seidenberg - John Seidenberg has worked on newspapers, newsletters, radio news, and produced specialized news publications as well as freelance ...
