An anniversary weekend at Watauga Lake

Karen here. About one in five of our couples’ bookings is an anniversary, and the questions we get about anniversary trips are different from the questions we get about a regular romantic weekend. People want to know what to do, where to eat, where to take the photo, and how to make a single weekend feel like a marker for something that took a long time to build.

This is the trip we’d plan for someone celebrating ten, twenty-five, or fifty years.

What an anniversary trip needs that a normal weekend does not

A few things we have learned from hosting these:

A spot for a real toast that is not the kitchen. The kitchen island is fine for dinner, but when you are marking a decade, you want a horizon. The bedroom balcony in the queen suite works. The back porch with the fire pit works. The dam observation point at sunset works best.

A meal that is the meal of the trip. Most weekends, dinner is a happy thing that you remember in the abstract. For an anniversary, one of the dinners needs to be specific, planned, anticipated, photographed. You only need one. Do not try to make three nights all be peak dinners. One is the spine and the others can be the kitchen or pizza.

A photograph that is not a selfie. We will get to where to take this one. It matters because in ten more years you will look at the picture, and the picture is most of what survives.

A small ceremony. Some couples renew vows formally. Most just want a private moment, fifteen minutes, two glasses, a view, a few words said out loud. Build that into the plan.

A morning that is yours. Anniversary weekends should include at least one morning with no alarm, no driving, no plan beyond coffee and the sound of the lake. This is the part guests thank us for the most.

The shape of the weekend

This is Friday through Monday. If you only have Friday through Sunday, we will tell you which pieces to skip.

Friday afternoon: arrive slowly

Get to the townhouse by four o’clock if you can. Driving in tired and rushing into dinner is the wrong start. Pick up groceries in Elizabethton on the way through. We use Food City on West Elk Avenue for normal items and Watauga Vintners around the corner for wine and a decent bourbon selection. There is a florist on East Elk if you want fresh flowers for the kitchen, and if you tell us a day in advance we will have them on the island when you walk in.

Self-check in via the keypad. Walk every room first. Walk the deck. Notice the light. Sit down for ten minutes before you unpack anything. The trip starts when you sit.

Friday evening: stay in

The Friday after a long drive should not be a dinner reservation. Cook something simple in the kitchen or order pizza from Hampton, fifteen minutes away. Light the fire pit on the back porch around eight. Bring the bottle out.

This is a good night for one of the small ceremonies. We have had couples write a card to each other a year in advance and open it on the porch on anniversary night. We have had couples bring the photograph from their wedding day and look at it together on the deck. We have had couples just sit and watch the fire and not say anything for forty minutes. The fire pit holds whatever you want it to hold.

Saturday morning: balcony, then trail

Coffee on the bedroom balcony at seven, sun coming up over the ridge across the lake. Make breakfast at home, eggs and toast, do not be ambitious. Eat on the deck if it is over fifty degrees out.

Late morning, drive five minutes to the Shook Branch Recreation Area and walk the flat section of the Appalachian Trail along the lake. This is the gentle part. You are not climbing anything. You are walking next to clear water with the AT blazes on the trees, hand in hand, an hour out and an hour back. We had a couple last spring tell us this was the part they had not expected to remember and it was the thing they remembered most. Bring a small thermos of coffee for the bench at the cove halfway out.

Saturday lunch: Captain’s Table or a deck somewhere

If Captain’s Table at Watauga Lakeshore Resort is open, eat lunch there on the deck over the water. Call ahead, the operating status has been unstable since the 2023 fire at the previous operator and we do not want you driving over to a closed door. If it is closed, drive into Hampton for sandwiches at the Watauga Lake Mercantile and take them back to the property to eat on your own deck. The Mercantile makes a tomato and basil sandwich that is better than it has any right to be.

Saturday afternoon: the wineries, one slow

Villa Nove Vineyards is five minutes from the house. Watauga Lake Winery is ten. For an anniversary, pick one and stay there for the whole afternoon instead of trying both. Villa Nove has a covered patio and a wood stove on cold days and the staff will walk you through a flight if you tell them you are celebrating. Watauga Lake Winery has live music on most Saturdays and a deck overlooking the water.

If you want to taste at both, do Villa Nove first and Watauga Lake Winery second, and plan for someone to be the driver. The road between them is pleasant but it is mountain road and you want a clear head for the dinner drive coming up.

Saturday evening: the dinner

This is the dinner. Drive thirty minutes east into Banner Elk, North Carolina, on US-321. The road climbs through Elk Park and crosses into the high country, and the light at six in the evening in April or October on that road is the reason people move here.

Our recommendation for the milestone dinner is Stonewalls, a steakhouse in downtown Banner Elk that has been there for decades and feels like a real restaurant. Reserve a window table at least three weeks ahead for a weekend in October. Order the trout if you want the local thing or the filet if you want the steakhouse thing. The wine list is real. The bread is real. The waiter will not rush you.

The alternative is Painted Fish Cafe across the street, smaller, more casual, also good, and easier to get a table at on short notice. Painted Fish is the choice if you decided last Tuesday that you wanted to come up for the weekend.

Drive home along the same road in the dark. Take it slow. Watch for deer above Elk Park.

Saturday night: the toast and the tub

Back at the house, take the bottle of something good and two glasses up to the bedroom balcony. The lake is dark, the stars are out, and the only sound is the wind in the rhododendron. This is the toast. Say the thing you have been planning to say. We have heard couples promise things to each other on that balcony that they did not promise at their wedding. There is something about a quiet lake at night that gives people the courage.

Then the jet tub. It has been a day. The jet tub is the third gift the anniversary weekend gives you, after the trail and the dinner.

Sunday morning: the photograph

Sleep in. Take coffee back to the balcony. When the light gets good, around nine in the morning in fall and around seven in summer, take the photograph that is not a selfie.

Our suggestion: walk down to the dam observation point, eight minutes drive from the townhouse. There is a railing-fronted overlook that frames the lake stretching out behind you. Put the phone on the railing on a timer, or set up a small tripod, and take a real photograph of the two of you with the lake behind. Five shots, varying poses. One of them will be the one you put in a frame. We have seen this picture in the Christmas cards we get from past guests.

If you have a real camera, the dam itself is a striking subject in its own right. The AT crosses the top of the dam and you can walk out on it, three hundred feet above the river gorge. The dam is the kind of background that makes a portrait feel monumental.

Sunday afternoon: free

This is your free afternoon. Most couples spend it on the deck reading, or driving a slow loop through Roan Mountain State Park, or sitting in the sun by the lake at Watauga Point. There is no item to check off. The work of the weekend is done.

If you want one more activity, drive forty-five minutes to Banner Elk and walk the town. The shops are real and the bookstore is good. Stop at the Banner Elk Winery on the way back for one more glass.

Sunday evening: stay in again

We recommend not making a reservation on Sunday night. By Sunday evening you are tired in the good way and you do not want to perform another dinner. Cook pasta. Light the fire pit. Talk about the trip. This is how the weekend lands.

Monday morning: a slow leave

If you booked through Monday, take the morning slowly. Coffee on the balcony one more time. Pack at ten. Leave at eleven. The drive home will feel longer than the drive in. It always does.

The fifty-year version

For a fiftieth, a few additions. The townhouse sleeps six, so kids and grandkids can join for a single dinner without staying over. Reserve the back room at Stonewalls for a party of six or eight, or have everyone come to the townhouse for a dinner Karen and Bill can help arrange catering for. We have done this twice and it is one of the most meaningful events we have hosted.

For a fiftieth photograph, drive up to Carvers Gap at the top of Roan Mountain on the second morning. The grass balds at sunrise are the most striking landscape in the region. A photograph of two people at fifty years standing on a grass bald at six thousand feet, with the layered ridges stretching out behind them, is a photograph that goes on a wall.

For the toast, we suggest doing it on the dam at sunset. Bring a small picnic. The light at six in October on the dam is unreal and the railing makes a perfect place to put two glasses.

The ten-year version

Tens are often the harder anniversary to honor because the kids are usually small and the babysitting math is real. If you can get away for two nights without children, do. The weekend above compresses to Friday evening through Sunday morning with the Saturday spine intact. Skip the Carvers Gap drive. Keep the dinner at Stonewalls or Painted Fish. Keep the dam photograph. Keep the morning on the balcony. That is enough.

What to ask us before you arrive

Message us if you want flowers, a bottle of something, or a small cake on the island when you walk in. Message us if you want a recommendation for a photographer for an hour on the deck on Saturday afternoon. Message us if you want help reserving the right table at the right restaurant for the right night. None of this is a service we charge for. It is the thing we like doing.

For the small mechanics of how we run the property, see the property page. For our general couples template, see the couples’ getaway article. For the dinner options on the broader map, see where to eat near Watauga Lake. To check availability for your specific weekend, go to the booking page and message us the date if it shows as unavailable. Sometimes we can move things.

Anniversaries are the bookings we put the most care into. The trip works because the lake is quiet, the dinner is real, and there is a balcony where you can say what you came to say. That is most of it.