Why Lost River?

Posted on April 11, 2019By Lost River Vacations

From Jane: In the summer of 2017, my wife and I had packed up for a much anticipated week at the Outer Banks. We had rented a house within walking distance to the beach, and were bringing our two dogs, sharing the house with friends who also were bringing their dogs. It was going to be pretty awesome. Unfortunately for us at the time, however actually in hindsight, fortunately in the long run… right as we arrived, a blackout plunged the entire Outer Banks into darkness (NY Times article) which forced us to evacuate our rental five days early. Now what?

We weren’t quite ready to let go of the idea of being on vacation, and frantically searched AirBnB in a 3 hours radius from Washington DC. My eyes were immediately drawn to an adorable “treehouse” style getaway in the small town of Lost River, WV. I had never heard of it, but my friend with us said she had read an article about it and it was supposed to be gorgeous. Only 7 hours drive from OBX (yes, that was sarcasm) but it’s 6 hours home to DC anyway, so why not? Off we went with a car full of sandy dogs, a box of Duck’s Donuts and a bunch of useless beach gear. From the beach to the mountains we went…

We all loved Lost River from the moment we arrived. The winding country roads, mountains, creeks, and tall trees felt magical, and we couldn’t stop marveling at the fact that this existed just two hours from the DC metro area. We have travelled extensively, stayed in Deep Creek Lake, Ocean City, and all of the other usual suspects, but Lost River feels different. It feels special. We found ourselves coming back again and again, and each time falling more and more in love. We dragged various friends along with us, and they all fell in love too. We knew we had found something special.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau

When Shawn, Andrew and I started kicking this idea around, we originally looked at Deep Creek Lake and the Shenandoah Valley, but found that things seemed overpriced, and our ability to do what we had in mind would be proscribed. I suggested Lost River, and after hearing more, the others agreed, and we began to hunt for our property.