Kanuga Lake Historic District

Kanuga Lake Historic District is a wooded conference center and former summer resort of about 100 acres near Hendersonville, North Carolina. George Stephens founded the Kanuga Lake Club here around 1908 as a cooperative retreat for prominent Charlotte businessmen and professionals, with a clubhouse, a lake and thirty-nine one-story cottages. Architect Richard Sharp Smith designed the cottages to five plans, and landscape architect John Nolen is documented as having worked on the physical layout. The cottages, covered in wood shingles or board and batten and painted forest green with white trim, still stand in rows radiating from the central inn site. After the club failed, Episcopal interests acquired the property in 1929 and turned it to religious programs and camps. Later additions include the Chapel of the Transfiguration, a 1960s inn by architect Betram King, and a lakeside pavilion. Woodlands, stone walls, old roads and walkways preserve the original setting.