Smith Mountain Lake
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Smith Mountain Lake is a large artificial lake southeast of Roanoke, Virginia, and southwest of Lynchburg, Virginia. Initial proposals were made in the late 1920s to dam the Roanoke River and the Blackwater River at the Smith Mountain gorge to generate electricity. Construction on the dam began in 1960 and was completed in 1963. The lake reached its normal water level in March 1966. The lake is 20,600 acres and has over 500 miles of shoreline. The north shore of the lake lies entirely in Bedford County. The majority of the south shore of the lake lies in Franklin County while a portion, including access to the dam, lies in Pittsylvania County.
The area lies in a broad valley nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of rural southwestern Virginia of the Appalachian chain. Before the lake's creation, farming and logging were the primary industries. Communities around the lake include Moneta, Huddleston,Unionhall,White House,Penhook and Goodview. There is no post office with a Smith Mountain Lake mailing address. The Booker T. Washington National Monument is near the west end of the lake.
The dam produces pumped-storage hydroelectricity. Water flows through the dam turbines into Leesville Lake during the day (high demand time) to produce supplemental electricity. Water is then pumped from Leesville lake back into Smith Mountain Lake at night (low demand time). The dam is operated by Appalachian Power, part of American Electric Power.
The level of the lake varies during the day and night, as water flows through (and is pumped back through) the dam. The normal maximum level of the lake (also known as "Full Pond") is regulated to 795 feet above sea level. The normal observed level (also known as "normal pond") is more like 794.20 feet. The level can be significantly lower during periods of extended drought. Lake levels were about six feet below normal from time to time, during the years 2001 to 2003, after five years of below-average rainfall. Conversely, Even though 40-mile long, and is 20,600 acres and the surface covers 32 square miles and has over 500 miles of shoreline,it can still flood.
Smith Mountain Lake has become a popular recreational area. Fishing is very popular, especially for striped bass. The lake has hosted professional fishing tournaments. Boating, water skiing, wakeboarding, and riding personal watercraft are also common activities. The Virginia Dare, constructed to be reminiscent of a Mississippi River steamboat, offers cruises on the lake. Smith Mountain Lake State Park opened in 1983 and provided a beach and a section for swimming. Golf at one of the several nearby courses is a popular landside activity.
The lake was featured prominently in the 1991 movie comedy What About Bob?, directed by Frank Oz and starring Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss and Julie Hagerty. It served as the stand-in for Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.
The nearby town of Moneta (bedford county) was used for some early establishing scenes such as the general store,the Gutmans coffee shop and the bus station.The insane asylum was the National Elks Home in Bedford City. Some of the filming was done at Bernards Landing where the crew overlaid the gravel pathways with pine chips (to abate the noise while characters were walking and talking) and built a "snacks" shed for the background of a scene that stands to this day as an equipment shed for the Bernards Landing. Much of the filming was done at an attractive lakeside house in Moneta (franklin county) and down the street from the marina, which in contrast to the climactic scene in the film, it was not destroyed by dynamite and still stands, overlooking Bedford,Franklin and Pittsylvania County.A 2/3rds scale house was built on a similar point lot and that was used as the climatic end to the movie.
Development
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the area around Smith Mountain Lake remained rural and remote. The limited early residential developments around the lake consisted largely of Tobbacco farms and some trailer parks and modest houses. However, residential growth has been steady since the mid-1980s and increasingly upscale with large lakefront houses, condominiums, and communities centered around golf courses. A new urbanist style development named Mayberry Hills, after the fictional town in The Andy Griffith Show, is currently being built in Moneta. Developers have also proposed to build a 7,000 seat outdoor amphitheatre near Moneta to attract national level performers. The lake has both attracted those who commute to Roanoke and Lynchburg and retirees, many of whom have relocated from the Northeast. By the late 1990s, the number and affluence of the new residents resulted in the construction of new retail and commercial developments.
State Route 122 is the only primary highway in the immediate area, though State Route 24 and State Route 116 are nearby.
