Poor Deep Creek Lake, so unappreciated. For some reason, this mountain prize is off a lot of Baltimoreans' mental maps. Folks seem to think it's either too far away, too dull or too hillbilly. But it's not.
A few weeks ago, I made the road trip in under three hours. Think about it: You could spend that kind of time in a Bay Bridge backup on a summer weekend. As for dull, what's dull about a scenic chairlift ride, a guided wildflower walk or a cruise on Maryland's largest freshwater lake?
And, yes, Garrett County -- home to Deep Creek Lake and more parkland than any other county in Maryland -- does reside within the Appalachian Plateau, but I didn't see a lot of appliances and couches on the front porches there. I did see chai and biscotti on a takeout menu, however.
But even more powerful than what Deep Creek isn't is the sophisticated playground it is becoming. Not that long ago, rental vacation homes amounted to two- and three-bedroom cottages or chalets furnished with discards from the owner's home and no hope of cable TV.
Now, the norm is five to eight bedrooms with a great many of the new rentals sporting hot tubs, game rooms and data ports. One of the swishiest properties -- it sleeps 24--- costs $5,500 a week, but there are many more that rent for as little as $800 a week. And you've got to love the names of some of these havens: Always in Season, Stargazer.calm, Kottage on the Kove and, my favorite, Write-Off. Now that's poetry.
The real estate sales market tells the same story: Fifteen years ago, the most expensive lakefront lot was $15,000. Now, the same lot is selling for $400,000. It would have been unthinkable even five years ago but there are houses -- second homes, no less -- that are fetching more than $1 million; last month, one sold for $1.4 million after 18 days on the market.
People aren't spending that kind of money at Deep Creek because it is backward or inhospitable or boring. They are investing in a year-round vacation getaway that has all sorts of things to recommend it, chief among them this loopy 3,900-acre lake with fingers and coves spreading every which way. On paper, it looks like a Rorschach test.
I like the way Bill Sisler, a co-owner of Bill's Marine Service, put it when he motored me around the lake in his Bayliner. "It's not a complicated lake for people to just get out on and enjoy. It's drinking- water safe all year round," he said. "And can you believe how nicely the land lays around it? I think maybe that's the best part."
