When I moved to Virginia, I was determined to see the famous landmarks near me by searching for local events and holiday traditions in the region. When I ran across an ad for Mountain Lake Lodge in Pembroke, Virginia, I could not believe what I found!

This rustic lodge and resort are nestled in the Alleghany Mountains near Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, a one-hour drive from Roanoke. I had no problem taking that short drive, so I kept reading about it. To my surprise, Mountain Lake Lodge is where most of the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed in 1987. If you’re not familiar with the movie, it’s a romantic drama about Frances “Baby” Horsman (Jennifer Grey), a sheltered teenager who falls in love with dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) while vacationing with her family in 1963 at a Catskill Mountain resort in southeastern New York State, but it was actually filmed in Virginia! The movie, an absolute favorite of mine, is filled with music of the 1960s and amazing choreographed dancing.

I had to see this for myself. I drove south from Roanoke on I-81, exited onto US Hwy 460W through Christiansburg and Blacksburg, and then made a right turn to climb Salt Pond Mountain to Mountain Lake Lodge. At 4,000 feet in elevation, the lodge is surrounded by a 2,600-acre nature preserve offering year-round outdoor activities and panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  

After navigating the curvy mountain road, I saw it—the majestic Mountain Lake Lodge known as Kellerman’s Resort in the film. I was right there in the making of a movie. It was breathtaking and unbelievably exciting. The stone lodge with an awning over the front entrance and a balcony off the dining room is the focal point, with the cottage that Baby and her family stayed in and cabins where the dancers lived across the way. I parked the car and began my adventure up the steps into the lodge, including the dining room where Patrick Swayze found Jennifer Grey seated with her family and said his iconic line, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” He took her hand and led her on stage to perform the famous final dance of the movie.

I walked the self-guided tour through the grounds, snapping pictures of Baby’s cottage, the dancer’s quarters, and the gazebo used in scenes of the movie, perusing the Dirty Dancing memorabilia along the way. In the film, that gazebo includes a pier extending into Mountain Lake, but today the lake is a meadow with a small pond. The lake was full from 1985 to 2005 but dropped significantly in 2008, remaining largely dry for years now. It showed signs of refilling during an extremely rainy spring in 2020 but continues to fluctuate.

I told my sister, the movie buff, about this amazing iconic find, and she couldn’t wait to come see it for herself. She brought her husband with her for a visit, and after basking in the movie memories surrounding us, we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner in the Harvest Restaurant in the lodge.

A few years later, Walter took me for a winter drive and decided to brave the winding mountain road to Mountain Lake Lodge on that snowy day. It was a scary adventure, but to see the lodge and nature reserve covered in snow was spectacular.