Wedding DJ at Lake Lure Inn and Spa in Lake Lure, NC

The Space

The Lake Lure Inn and Spa opened in the spring of 1927 the same week the town of Lake Lure was incorporated and the dam that created the lake was completed, all part of a larger vision to build a Lake Como-inspired resort town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Mediterranean Revival architecture, stucco walls, arches, a red-shingled roof, still carries that original vision, and the inn is filled with statuary, paintings, carvings, and historic objects collected by later owners George and Hope Wittmer.

The guest list over the decades reads like a period piece: Calvin Coolidge visited in 1928, Franklin Roosevelt, Emily Post, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all stayed at the inn, and during World War II it served as a rest stop for 5,000 U.S. Army Air Corps combat airmen. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey stayed here while filming Dirty Dancing in 1986, and rooms are named for them. The interior still shows original oak and pine floors, period furniture, oil paintings, and music boxes over six feet tall in the lobby.

Capacity & Layout

The Tanner Dining Room, a Mediterranean-inspired room, seats up to 215 for a wedding reception, and the property adds Roosevelt Hall for a smaller gathering of up to 75, giving couples a real choice in scale rather than one fixed room. Beyond those two indoor spaces, the Veranda Terrace, poolside areas, and the Grand Lobby with its stained glass windows all serve as options for cocktail hour or a smaller ceremony, so the reception and the earlier parts of the day do not have to happen in the same room.

Ceremonies typically use the Lakeside Gazebo at Morse Park, built with wooden beams, natural rock inlays, and accent lighting, facing the lake and mountains beyond it. A historic 32-passenger trolley moves guests between spaces given how spread out the grounds are, and on-site accommodation across 72 rooms and three private cabins means the wedding party can stay where the event is happening.

Amenities

The Veranda Restaurant handles fine dining either in the Tanner Dining Room or out on the Veranda Terrace, and the Moose & Goose Lounge provides a separate full bar space for guests who want to step away from the reception itself. Beyond food and drink, the property leans into its lake setting: beach access, kayak and canoe rentals, paddleboard rentals, and pontoon boat tours are all available.

The property is handicap accessible with free WiFi throughout, free self-parking, and roughly 1,000 square feet of additional meeting space across four rooms for anything from a rehearsal dinner to a next-day brunch. The stone-and-stucco Mediterranean architecture is not incidental decor, it is the actual 1927 building, restored by the Wittmers starting in 2004 and sold to Ridgeline Acquisitions in 2024, so the historic character throughout the inn is original rather than reproduced.

Location & Getting There

The inn sits in Hickory Nut Gorge at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, about a mile from downtown Chimney Rock Village and roughly 17 to 30 minutes from Asheville Regional Airport, close enough for a genuinely scenic mountain drive without stranding out-of-town guests. Lake Lure itself is a designated sister city to Lake Como, Italy, a nod back to the resort’s original founding vision.

We have worked a wedding at the Lake Lure Inn, and the difference between the outdoor gazebo ceremony and the indoor Tanner Dining Room reception matters for sound: the gazebo sits open to the lake and mountains, so a ceremony there needs speakers angled toward the seated guests rather than out over the water, while the Tanner Dining Room’s period architecture and hard floors carry a reception’s music and dancing the way an older, high-ceilinged ballroom does, full and lively once the room fills for dinner and the dance floor opens.