About Us

History

Kanuga is a two part story. First is the 1909 Kanuga Lake Club designed to attract the rich of the South to summer in the western mountains of North Carolina. The second is the successful effort begun in 1928 to establish an Episcopal conference center for camping and leadership training for the churches of North and South Carolina.

Kanuga Lake Club

George Stephens

Charlotte banker, real estate developer, and newspaper publisher George Stephens wanted a place where families could come and escape the hot summers of Charlotte, Columbia, and the Low Country and here in the cool mountains, be with the families they were with back home. Stephens commissioned the nationally famous John Nolen to plan such a place and he chose the noted Asheville architect Richard Sharp Smith to design the major buildings. He bought 950 acres and placed a substantial dam across Mud Creek creating a lake three times the size of the lake we know today. Overlooking this lake he built a large inn with dining rooms. A lakeside pavilion for the social activities and water sports and 39 cottages – ranging in size from two to six bedrooms – completed one of the South’s greatest summer resorts.

The Kanuga Lake Club Pavillion

The Kanuga Lake Club from the day of its announcement was an important summer resort. Stephens himself was important. His American Trust Company became Bank of America, his newspapers were The Charlotte Observer, and at one time, The Asheville Citizen. His other major real estate development was Myers Park, Charlotte, considered frontier thinking in urban development. Kanuga Lake Club members and guests would come by railroad up through Saluda Gap, be met in Hendersonville and carried by team out to their club, but it was short lived. His son once said that Kanuga was the only financial failure his father ever experienced. The great flood of 1916 broke the Kanuga Lake dam and though it was rebuilt as the lake we know today, summer resorts of this kind proved to be passing enterprises. At Kanuga four bankruptcies followed four reorganizations.

Episcopal Kanuga

“This magnificent property will then belong to the Church,” Bishop Kirkman George Finlay told his Upper South Carolina diocese in 1928 when the purchase of the Kanuga Lake Club by the cooperative dioceses of the two Carolinas seemed certain and they could begin their first summer camp at Kanuga. Bishop Finlay had for several previous summers rented different sites for a summer camp. Under his leadership, Kanuga in ten years became the largest Episcopal church conference center in the whole church. Stories of lives changed became legend and even today a few who can remember this remarkable bishop glow when they tell stories of the man who seemed to attend to every detail. “He is the man who waters the horses.” A little girl said when asked if she knew Bishop Finlay.

Chapel of the
Transfiguration

Bishop Finlay died at Kanuga in 1938. Money was quickly raised for the long-planned chapel. It now would be in honor of Kanuga’s founder. The Chapel of the Transfiguration was designed by Scottish born and educated S. Grant Alexander, O.B.E. and was dedicated in 1942. Leaders of the Anglican Communion have come to know this pine chapel just as they know the great abbeys and cathedrals of the world; they have worshiped here and many have spoken here.

During the years that followed the board always bought land adjacent to Kanuga whenever it became available. They bought land even when Kanuga was in debt. The idea of permitting private cottages on Kanuga property was seriously discussed as a way to solve financial problems; it was never adopted. Today Kanuga has over 1,400 acres and the absence of private dwellings on any part of the property sets Kanuga apart from almost all other North Carolina church conference centers.

Girls Camp, now Bob Campbell Youth Campus

In 1931, a boys’ camp was built about a quarter-mile from the hotel. This facility, now the Bob Campbell Youth Campus, became the Kanuga Camp for Girls when a new summer camp for boys was opened on the east side of the property. In the early 1970s, the boys’ and girls’ camps combined, using the eastern facility.

Kanuga Lake Inn goes up, 1968

In June, 1962, Kanuga opened a new summer camp on the east side of the property but the summer conference center facilities were old and were simply not adequate. The need was a new inn – an architectural statement of the best accommodations modern design could put together for its time – as the old buildings had been for theirs. It took two years to plan and to build and Kanuga would now be out of debt for almost twenty years. But, in June, 1968, the new Kanuga Inn we know today was opened. Kanuga was a year-round conference center.

The Bob Campbell Youth Campus was completed in the summer of 1999. Insulated and heated for year-round use, it is the home of Camp Bob outreach camping program for disadvantaged youngsters and at other times accommodates Kanuga’s Mountain Trail Outdoor School, which serves mostly school groups.

Kanuga continues to be the nation’s most used Episcopal conference center. Annually Kanuga hosts 35,000 guests and has a year-round staff of 120. The operating budget is $6 million, annual gifts average over $1.2 million, and the endowment is $6.4 million.

National Historic Recognition

The Kanuga Lake Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in 1995. It encompasses all the original Kanuga Lake Club property plus the Chapel of the Transfiguration and the outdoor St. Francis of Assisi Chapel which dates from the earliest Episcopal conferences in 1928. The green cottages look just as they have looked for almost a century but today have all been refurbished – which includes winterizing – and are together the most complete collection of Richard Sharp Smith housing in the nation.

Our Name

CHEROKEE SPELLING OF KANUGA The Cherokee word ka-nu-ga has two meanings. It is an object and it is a place name. Kanuga is a tool, a scratching device used in an ancient Cherokee vigorous ritual stick-ball game. One part of the ceremonial ritual was for players to strip for scratching. The scratching was done with a kanuga, which resembled a comb with seven teeth. The belief was that the scratching made the players tough and less likely to fall.

As a place name there was a lower Cherokee settlement named Kanuga apparently on the waters of the Keowee River in South Carolina, destroyed in 1761.

When George Stephens began buying land for his Kanuga Lake Club in the early 1900s a local legend held that Cherokee used to gather near here for their kanuga ritual game. He liked the story and chose the name Kanuga for his summer resort.

Kanuga has grown significantly over the years. See what we've become.