Lakeside Retreats We Keep Coming Back To
Photo by Kyle JohnsonStout's Island Lodge, Stout’s Island Lake, Wisconsin
Like many families I knew in Minneapolis, mine spent summers at a 1920s lake cabin fishing for trout in the morning, swimming and canoeing in the afternoon, and grilling at night. The closest I’ve come to re-creating that scene is at Stout’s Island Lodge, a few lakes away (two hours from the Twin Cities, six from Chicago). A pontoon boat ferries you to the 27-acre private island and into a shingled boathouse hung with stripped-wood canoes polished to a high gloss and 12-point-buck antlers nailed to the facade. Built for lumber baron Frank Stout in 1903, the rambling lodge was designed for entertaining, with a pitched roof over timbered beams, stone fireplaces, a clubby cocktail lounge, and a dining room that serves a surprisingly good bison burger. You can stay in one of the lodge’s 11 guest rooms, but personally I love Allison’s Cabin, with its screened porch and wicker couch that basically order you to lie down with a book until you drift off. Perennial country gardens overshadow a somewhat neglected tennis court that’s in the right condition for a casual game of doubles. After dinner you head down to the game room over the boathouse, where you can play a round of pool, finish someone else’s jigsaw puzzle, or deal cards—a throwback to playing Casino with my grandfather (and losing convincingly). Still, he would have recognized this place instantly: With the exception of the lodge’s only television, it could be the 1950s—which is exactly what you want from a place like this. —David Coggins
Courtesy Big Cedar LodgeBig Cedar Lodge, Table Rock Lake, Missouri
The Ozarks’ reputation as the backcountry unfolding somewhere beyond St. Louis, Memphis, and Oklahoma City was forged in the twenties, when bootleggers controlled the low-lying mountains and the term “hillbilly” was coined. But the area's onetime characterization is more than made up for by its still-stunning landscape: Dense oak-hickory hollows give way to wildflower fields, and jagged limestone bluffs tower above serpentine paths cut from free-flowing rivers. In a region with deep familial ties and a tradition of outdoorsmanship, it’s no coincidence that proud local turned Bass Pro Shops billionaire Johnny Morris, who grew up hawking fishing lure from his father’s liquor store, restored the buildings that make up the 4,600-acre wilderness retreat Big Cedar Lodge around Table Rock Lake. The huge property somehow gives off a small-town Americana vibe: Families pad toward the water, tackle boxes in tow, then head off to shoot clays, ride horses, or play lawn games. Book a lakeside cabin or knotty-pine cottage and be sure to order a Backyard Basket, which is delivered to your door with everything you need to grill on your deck overlooking the lake. —Lacy Morris
Courtesy Camp SolitudeCamp Solitude and Lake Kora, The Adirondacks, New York
I’ve been visiting this upstate park every August since I was five, and have never missed a summer. I love Keene Valley for hiking the 46ers (a.k.a., the Adirondack High Peaks), a slice of strawberry-rhubarb crumb pie at the Noon Mark Diner, and a shopping fix at the Birch Store for rustic-chic homeware. But for old-world lake living, including trout fishing, rowing a handmade guide boat, and falling asleep to midnight loon calls, you can’t beat Upper Saint Regis, Spitfire Lake, and Lake Placid to rent one of the area’s historic “Great Camps” and summer like a Gilded Age Vanderbilt or Rockefeller. Camp Solitude, a restored 1890s compound accessed by boat from Lake Placid, is a favorite (book it through adirondackestates.com); you can also buy out Lake Kora, a rustic-luxe Great Camp, in its entirety. But if that’s too much house to take on, there’s always The Point, the twig-and-timber icon of Upper Saranac. —Amanda Brooks
Editor’s note, March 9, 2021: This entry has been updated with new information.
Courtesy Suttle Lodge & BoathouseSuttle Lodge & Boathouse, Suttle Lake, Oregon
Like the rest of the state, Central Oregon doesn’t lack for nature to swashbuckle through: rock climbing the Mars-like spires of Smith Rock, fly-fishing for bull trout in the Metolius, bluebird skiing at Hoodoo. The problem is finding a base that isn’t a musty cabin, fussy lodge, or eighties-build rental. Therein lies the beauty of the Suttle Lodge & Boathouse, 15 acres on the shores of Suttle Lake in the Deschutes National Forest, about 150 miles southeast of Portland. An 11-room lodge opened last August by Mighty Union, the hospitality group behind the Ace Hotel Portland, there’s nothing like it in terms of vibe and hip factor in the area—or outside Portland, for that matter. There’s a dock and boathouse, plus a lawn for corn hole and croquet, but also a little beer garden tapping local brews and restaurant menus dreamed up by Josh McFadden—formerly of Franny’s in Brooklyn and now the executive chef at Ava Gene’s in Portland—serving celery root chowder, cracker-crust pizzas, and Willamette Valley rosé. —Rebecca Misner
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Courtesy Moraine Lake LodgeMoraine Lake Lodge, Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Canada
Anyone looking to experience the Revenant-scale grandeur of Alberta’s third biggest national park could stay at the castlelike Fairmont Banff Springs, but then you’d be giving up a front-row seat to the aggressively blue, glacially fed lake at the 33-room Moraine Lake Lodge. It’s the starting point for some of the park’s best hikes, into Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass, though longer hikes require a minimum of four walkers due to potential bear encounters. The resort has a suitably unpretentious vibe, if an oddly endearing late-eighties aesthetic (think angular roof lines and sliding glass doors). But the rooms—the best of which are in the cottages—are cozy with rough-hewn furniture, thick blankets, fireplaces, and balconies, an ideal and will be your base for ultralong, ultraquiet (Mount Babel tends to block cell service) summer days—maybe too long and too quiet, frankly, for kids. Day-trippers show up during peak summer months, though they’re out by 5, so that after a dinner of grilled local deer or a buffalo burger, you can make like Lewis and Clark and paddle out for a white-night canoe ride. —David Jefferys
Courtesy Basin HarborBasin Harbor, Lake Champlain, Vermont
For such a big lake, its narrow, fjordlike shape creates a feeling of privacy along the shore. The manoresque Inn at Shelburne Farms makes a great wedding backdrop, but I’m partial to the more relaxed Basin Harbor, a 700-acre compound of restored cottages in Vergennes, with golf, tennis, and an armada of small watercraft. Book a lakeside clapboard-and-stone cottage with a private porch and lawn; while it's hard to leave, it'd be a mistake not to pull yourself away long enough for coffee and cardamom buns at the wood-fired oven at Vergennes Laundry in town, or a visit to the Shelburne Museum, an odd collection of folk-art-filled historic buildings, covered bridges, and a steamboat. —Andrea Whittle
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Photo by Michael DeYoung/Courtesy Rocky Mountain RanchRocky Mountain Ranch, Rocky Mountain Ranch Pond, Idaho
From the porch of this 1920s lodge with such overloaded views of the Sawtooth Mountains that it made the National Register of Historic Places, you can watch osprey dive-bomb the pond for trout as the lemonade turns to craft beer by 5 p.m. There’s a vintage paddle boat, and a dock for for feet-dangling, fishing rainbows and westslope cutthroats, or a hasty cover-up post skinny-dip—not that anyone will be watching. I first saw the Rocky Mountain Ranch in my 20s, on a Jeep ride from Sun Valley, an hour away, and felt like I’d walked into an oil painting: snow-capped peaks, more antelope than people, frigid sapphire lakes at the end of long hikes with names like Saddleback and Profile, where brain freeze is the cost of a plunge. Years later, seeing a For Sale sign, I dreamed of buying it, but on a freelance writer’s salary I had to talk my siblings into my dude ranch fantasy. We recently redid the 17 hand-hewn log cabins, built a yoga pavilion, and hired a chef comfy with both arugula and elk sausage. One of us is usually lurking around here, but you’ll still have your own private Idaho. —Diana Kapp
Courtesy Lake Rabun HotelLake Rabun Hotel, Lake Rabun, Georgia
In the early 1900s, Georgia Power built a hydroelectric plant and dams along the Tallulah River in the state’s northeast corner to create reservoirs that powered Atlanta, 120 miles away. Named for one of these, the 13-room Lake Rabun Hotel, built in 1922—think stout locust posts, fieldstone fireplaces and hickory railings—still serves as an escape hatch from the soupy city heat. Property owners on the bottle-green, 834-acre lake kept commercial development at bay, so don’t expect cute shops and bakeries. In fact, the folks at Hall’s Boat House, a historic marina steps from the hotel, can be crusty, but authentically so. They’ll rent you a pontoon boat, or the hotel’s concierge can fix you up with a canoe or paddleboard. Locals swear Lake Rabun has the most vintage wooden powerboats per capita in America, which they show off every July Fourth in a parade of shellacked Chris-Crafts and Gar Woods. —Logan Ward
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Courtesy Migis LodgeMigis Lodge, Sebago Lake, Maine
It’s a bit of a revelation to find big, swimmable lakes in a state with more coastline than California. But Sebago Lake is easy to get to (45 minutes from Portland) and remote enough to lose cell service. Migis Lodge tends to bring families back on repeat to its 35 tidy (if a little granny-chic) cottages spread over 125 piney acres on the Sebago shore. You’ve got the boathouse at your disposal—water skiing, sailing, fishing—plus three meals in the dining room (white table cloths and a dress code). If all-inclusive isn’t your thing, skip the lunches (the lakeside cookout is more fun anyway), but don’t miss evening cocktails on the porch of the main lodge, while the kids take one last plunge off the raft. —Paulie Dibner