Happy Days Lodge

Happy Days Lodge is a long, low timber lodge with local sandstone in the Virginia Kendall area. The Civilian Conservation Corps built it as a children’s camp in the late 1930s; today the Conservancy operates it as an event space for concerts, programs and private gatherings. Plan around a scheduled event or program: there are no established daily walk-in hours or interior tours.

For events, the main lot is across Route 303. Follow the walkway through the pedestrian tunnel to the lodge; that route includes stairs. Accessible parking and drop-off are beside the building. When it is open for an event, the lodge has flush accessible restrooms and drinking water, but don’t count on them for an unscheduled stop.

The Great Hall covers 4,000 square feet, and a screened porch gives events another place to gather. From the lawn, the long façade sits against the trees; that open foreground is the clearest way to show the lodge’s full profile.

Company 576 arrived near here in a December 1933 snowstorm and spent nearly a decade building trails, roads and facilities around the valley. The 11-room children’s camp followed in the late 1930s, built with local Berea sandstone and wormy American chestnut. The lodge is among the world’s largest structures built from that chestnut; its sandstone floor and fireplaces carry the local stone inside.

The camp took its name from “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the song associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. For young people spending time here during the Depression, it was meant as a hopeful name. Later, the building served as a dormitory for Akron’s summer playground program.

Haskell Run Trail begins behind the lodge and runs about half a mile. A connector reaches the 1.8-mile Ledges Trail, making the lodge a useful landmark if you’re walking in the Virginia Kendall area even when you aren’t attending an event.