Opening ceremony guests gather in the fireplace-equipped living room of the new two-story, 2,200 square-foot cottage.
WESTON, W.Va. — Budget cuts and funding uncertainty have placed many West Virginia state parks in survival, rather than expansion, mode. But Lewis County’s Stonewall Resort State Park has opened the first of what could be 20 new luxury cottages in a new, wooded lakeshore development, thanks to a new public-private funding venture at a park developed in part with private sector capital.
Don’t think small and quaint when envisioning Stonewall’s new development: The “cottages” are 2,200-square-foot, two-story, four-bedroom luxury homes equipped with Wi-Fi, gas fireplaces, washers and dryers, central air, roomy kitchens and huge porches. Each bedroom has its own bathroom and flat screen television.
The occupancy rate has been high at Stonewall Resort’s existing 10-unit cottage development, begun in 2002, featuring two- and four-bedroom units overlooking the lake and the resort’s lodge on the opposite shore.
“The four-bedroom units are usually the first to go, so we knew we had a market for more…