
In the Mountains: The Pinnacle Inn served guests, its memory serves students
For nearly 40 years Pinnacle Inn operated as a beloved resort for guests seeking a mountain getaway, and the Inn’s echoes can still be found on campus todayIn 1926 name suggestions began flooding in for a new resort facility on the campus of Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk. “Majesty Inn,” “Grandfather Hotel,” “Rio Feliciana,” “Contents Me Inn,” and “Inn Paradise” were just a few of the dozens of suggestions that were made as part of the naming contest for the new Inn, which would open for the first time that summer. With a free week’s stay on the line, it was Mrs. T. F. Staley of Bristol, Tennessee who made the winning name suggestion. Pinnacle Inn was born.
With the recent establishment of two other area hotels, The Banner Elk Hotel and the Klonteska Inn, Banner Elk was already becoming a beloved destination for tourists seeking respite in the cooler weather and refreshing mountain air. The college’s founder Rev. Edgar Tufts came up with the idea because—according to his daughter Margaret Tufts Neal in her book chronicling the history of the college, “And Set Aglow a Sacred Flame”— he “could not see three new buildings [North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia] remaining idle through the summer months in one of the most beautiful and alluring locations in the mountains.”

This hand-drawn map illustrates the Inn’s proximity to towns and cities in the area. It was included in a 1932 promotional pamphlet for the Inn.
In May of 1926 an issue of the college’s magazine, also called “The Pinnacles,” introduced the new Inn to its readers with a list of four reasons why the name was chosen.
“First: the Tennessee Building itself is high up in the clouds. Second: from all points of the compass are visible pinnacles of well-known mountains. Third: both a boarding house and a paper bearing the same name would help to advertise the other, and lastly: 'The Pinnacles' suggests high ideals which all can seek to attain," the magazine writes.
Prior to the founding of the Pinnacle Inn, the buildings that now make up the Historic Commons sat empty over the summer, as there was little demand for summer school programming. With Tufts’ new vision, however, in the summer months those buildings were transformed into a mountain resort. This decision brought additional revenue to the school, expanded the college’s reach by creating a whole new constituency of people acquainted with the college, and provided summer employment to the college’s students.
Pinnacle Inn was truly a product of all the wonderful resources the college had at the time. In addition to making use of the college’s residence halls and employing the college’s students, the Inn served guests meals that were prepared using food from the college’s garden. Over time, the Inn also began a tradition of experiential learning at Lees-McRae.
In September of 1952, in cooperation with the North Carolina Hotel Association, the college began a two-year terminal education course in departmental hotel management. The program was structured around the Inn and offered students practical experience as hotel employees operating the facility over the summer.
According to an issue of “The State” published on July 11, 1953, Leo B. Jack Vaughn Jr., president and general manager of the Mayfair Hotel in Charlotte and president of the North Carolina Hotel Association, “explained in a conference at the college recently that it was the hope of the Association that the young people would be given such varied experience during the summer quarter that their second year of theoretical study would have considerable more meaning to them.”
Over the years, interest in the Inn continued to grow. While initially only Tennessee Hall was used for guest quarters, after only one year of operation Virginia Hall also opened for Inn guests. By the summer of 1928 the building expanded again when a swimming pool was opened in the basement for both guest and student use. Increased interest also created constraints around mealtimes, but in 1932 the now iconic Pinnacle Room was constructed to accommodate larger quantities of guests, supplementing the original dining hall located at that time on the lower floor of Tennessee Hall.
“By 1932 so successful was Pinnacle Inn that there was need for a larger and more attractive dining room. With profits from the Inn’s operation, a new dining room was constructed between the Tennessee and North Carolina Buildings,” Neal wrote. “This became one of the most attractive public dining rooms in the mountain area, with its large stone fireplace, rustic chestnut beams, and moss-lined pool in which real mountain trout swam.”
The Pinnacle Room, along with the Pinnacle Deck on its roof, have been restored with care and attention to the detail of the original furnishings. At the time, the roof of the dining room was outfitted with a stone fireplace, lawn chairs, and a rustic birch railing, and served as a gathering place for guests to enjoy mountain views and host parties in the evenings. The newly renovated facilities have restored the stone fireplace and outfitted the deck with updated furniture, recreating the cozy atmosphere that Pinnacle Inn guests of the past so enjoyed.


In 1963, following nearly 40 years of successful operation, Pinnacle Inn closed for guests. Demand for summer academic programming had increased, and the college shifted away from the Inn to better serve students over the summer months. While guests no longer used the facilities, students continued to make precious memories in the Pinnacle Room which served as the student dining room until 1975 when a growing student body once again demanded a larger dining facility.
For more than 25 years following the construction of the new dining hall, the Pinnacle Room sat largely unused and eventually served as a storage room. However, the love for the Pinnacle Room was never lost, and plans to restore it to its former glory were not forgotten. With the latest renovation of the Historic Commons, the Pinnacle Room is once again a cozy dining facility where college students and guests can continue to create new memories surrounded by echoes of the past.