The Fluvanna House, one of Chautauqua Lake’s earliest resort hotels, is pictured.

Did you know that the resort hotel era on Chautauqua Lake is generally considered to have spanned the decades from the 1870s to the 1920s.

The Fluvanna House built in 1836 by Samuel Whittemore, predated that great era by nearly 40 years. Located in the area now known as Old Fluvanna Road, the hotel was near the lower end of the lake’s south basin and reasonably close to the Village of Jamestown which had been founded in the earlier years of the 19th century.

Even so, travel by horse or on foot to the hotel was a slow process as much of the route was through forests and wilderness. Rail and steamboat transportation to such hotel and recreational lake destinations would not come into being until many years later. The Fluvanna House truly marked the early dawning of a new era in Chautauqua Lake’s history.