New Stonewall Resort offers luxury in W.Va. state park setting

05-29-2005

STONEWALL JACKSON LAKE STATE PARK, W.Va. -- West Virginia has nine state parks with lodging facilities worthy of your attention, but perhaps the most interesting and pioneering is the new Stonewall Resort in Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park.

	Stonewall Resort photo Morning mist envelops the 18th hole of the Arnold Palmer Signature Golf Course at Stonewall Resort.

Just a two-hour drive down I-79 from Pittsburgh, Stonewall, which opened in October 2002, was the first state park in the nation to be developed, constructed, financed and operated by a private developer working on behalf of the state.

The history of how this project came to be provides a lesson in legislative innovation.

Forty years ago, the rural hollows and hillsides along the meandering West Fork River in Lewis County were generally placid places. But every now and then, the West Fork went wild, regularly inundating the city of Weston, where it flows into the Monongahela.

In 1988, after years of heated debate and some complicated federal funding, the Army Corps of Engineers completed a dam across the West Fork, submerging the town of Roanoke, W.Va., and 2,200 acres of rolling farmland. The lake was named for Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, who was born nearby.

The state borrowed money to have the corps build a marina and other basic state park infrastructure, including campsites and a visitor center. At the same time, the state set aside another 20,000 acres surrounding the new lake as park and recreation lands. (Interestingly, although Roanoke disappeared, it was preserved on the highway exit marker, and the state park retained its ZIP code, 26447.)

Although Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park proved popular with outdoor enthusiasts, it quickly became apparent the park wasn't generating enough revenue to keep up with payments on the financial obligations the state had incurred.

The state sought assistance from Robert Byrd, West Virginia's powerful senator. Single-purpose federal legislation was developed and passed in 1995, an arrangement that essentially erased a dollar of its debt for each dollar spent on the construction of facilities within the boundaries of the state park.

Inspired by the challenge presented by the development opportunity, an ambitious plan was hatched. Seeing the state of Maryland create Rocky Gap Golf and Conference Center off I-68 east of Cumberland, and believing they had an equally prime location less than a mile off Interstate 79, rather than making modest improvements, the decision was made to create a "premier destination resort" for vacationers who wanted to do more than rough it.

In 1997, Rudy Henley, general partner of the Charleston-based developer McCabe-Henley-Durbin LLC, took on the design and construction part of the project, while Benchmark Hospitality, a global conference-resort management company, was contracted to help develop, manage and market the property. In addition to creating a valuable resource for the state, the plan would employ state residents, not only in the construction phase but also throughout the project.

The state anted up $15 million for the development, and the remaining $42 million was raised in privately financed bonds backed by a state guarantee. For its investment, West Virginia secured ownership of all the resort improvements, now totaling more than $60 million.

In August 2001, the project's first phase -- 10 lakeside cottages -- was completed. With two-, three- and four-bedroom configurations, the commodious "salt box" cottages can be rented by the night or the week. Fully furnished, they come with all the amenities of an upscale, lakeside home, with major appliances, fireplaces, air conditioning and heat, fully equipped kitchens, vaulted ceilings with exposed cedar post and beam framing, screened decks, gas grills and private boat launch.

Then three years ago last week, Stonewall's 18-hole, Arnold Palmer Signature golf course began playing to rave reviews. Both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine have since ranked the 7,149-yard course one of the country's best daily-fee places to play.

That fall, the Stonewall Lodge opened for business, with 198 spacious guest rooms in two long wings, all with a view of either the lake or the golf course. The lodge has two restaurants: Stillwaters offers a menu of traditional and regional cuisine, along with a flagstone terrace overlooking the lake; the casual, T.J. Muskie's Lounge features munchies, sandwiches and libations.

The lodge's ambiance, accommodations and amenities were good enough to earn it a AAA Four Diamond award.

But Stonewall's development didn't stop there.

Mountain Laurel Spa began offering body treatments and salon services in March 2003. That summer a list of outdoor activities, from horseback rides to kayak tours, was developed. Hiking trails and biking routes were added.

In spring of last year, Stonewall's 22,000-square-foot conference and exhibition center was unveiled, complete with all the latest audiovisual and communication equipment and an in-house conference staff to coordinate everything. In the summer, a handsome golf club house was completed on a picturesque hilltop overlooking the first tee. Upstairs, the resort's third restaurant, Lightburn's, serves a more casual cuisine. MountainMade, a purveyor of West-Virginia arts and crafts, opened a shop in the lodge.

Stonewall's rapid development is most impressive for a state park. Having seen the facilities firsthand, I can attest that everything is sparkling new, logically conceived, well-constructed and meticulously maintained. Lodge guest rooms are spacious and appointed, with many trimmings normally found in upscale hotels, from large, marble-lined bathrooms to eye-popping, in-room electronics.

That the golf course is a gem is obvious, even to a dedicated duffer like me. It's long and narrow with lots of challenges and obstacles -- a player's course, with six tee sets per hole and bent grass everywhere. Some of its fairways are wide; others are tight ribbons between trees and wetlands. With a lot of up and down, the course is certainly scenic, though not a round many would be inclined to walk.

If there's any fault with the course, it's newness. New construction needs time to settle in, plantings need time to mature, grounds crews need several seasons to figure the best strategies for tending and watering the grass. But it's clear they're learning fast.

To a degree, that same observation might apply to the Stonewall Resort generally. So much about the lodge's features and fixtures conveys the impression it was just unwrapped. While there's nothing wrong with that, the high standards of service Stonewall's creators envisioned simply take time and experience to attain.

Staffing the lodge with people from the area makes excellent sense, but having them learn both the requirements of their job and developing the hospitality skills and experience to satisfy upscale guests takes more than a season. By and large, every staff member we encountered was competent, friendly and anxious to please, but on several occasions our requests for simple services met with blank stares, as if no one had ever asked for that before.

In addition to a round of golf, I had a chance briefly to check out other activities. The biking on park grounds is limited to a few miles of access roads, so anyone with a mind to cover any real distance will have to do it on state roads, which, although picturesque, are also active thoroughfares.

Similarly, the resort's hiking was nothing special, with most of the trails wandering along the lake or around the golf course. We took the longest hike, a 3.5-mile walk called Hevener's Orchard Trail, which led straight up the hill and around the glen above the golf course. The woodsy route was pleasant and quiet, with old stone walls and occasional views of the lake, but it didn't seem as if it got much use.

Late in the afternoon, we wandered over to the marina. With 374 boat slips and a wide range of craft available for rent, from luxury houseboats and pontoon boats to kayaks and paddle-boats, it's certainly an activity hub. New last season was the addition of a 125-passenger excursion boat, offering sunrise, midday, sunset and moonlight tours.

With only an hour before dinner, we took out a pontoon boat and motored several lazy miles to the dam. While never more than a couple hundred yards wide, the lake wanders between the steep hillsides for 26 miles. The lake has more than 82 miles of shoreline, but on our short voyage we saw few places one might be inclined to get out and explore.

None of us was a fisherman, but there would have been ample opportunities. Stonewall Jackson is noted as one of West Virginia's best largemouth bass fishing lakes, with crappie, walleye, bluegill, perch, muskellunge, catfish, carp and stocked trout.

Perhaps fishing provides an apt metaphor for Stonewall Resort as a whole: while a keeper as is, it's certain to get even better with time.

Stonewall Resort

Getting there:

Stonewall Resort is a 21/2-hour drive from Pittsburgh on I-79. Take Exit 91 and follow signs to Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park.

Information and reservations:

1-888-278-8150 or www.stonewallresort.com. This lively, interactive web site offers virtual tours of the lodge's various rooms and facilities, as well as a nifty fly-over of all 18 holes on the golf course.

Golf rates:

Walk on play, $75 (Mondays through Thursdays), $85 (Fridays through Sundays). House guest rate, $69 (Mondays through Thursdays), $79 (Fridays through Sundays). Twilight golf (after 3 p.m.), $55 (Mondays through Thursdays), $65 (Fridays through Sundays).

Pennsylvania State Parks information: 1-888-727-2757 or www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks

Ohio State Parks information: 1-800-282-7275 or www.dnr.state.oh.us

West Virginia State Parks information: 1-800-225-5982 or www.wvstateparks.com.

Maryland State Parks information: 1-410-260-8367 or www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands.

Rocky Gap Lodge and Golf Resort information: 1-800-724-0828 or www.rockygapresort.com

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