<P> In the 1930s, William Lewis Moody, Jr. of Galveston, Texas bought the hotel . In 1938, Moody replaced the wooden hotel with the current structure, built using stone native to the surrounding land . Moody's daughter, Mrs. Mary Moody Northen, owned the hotel until her death in 1986, following which the trustees of her estate established a foundation known as the Mary Moody Northen Endowment, which presently maintains and operates the resort . The foundation was specifically established according to Mrs. Northen's final wishes to maintain the hotel and surrounding land as she had always known it, without overbuilding and, particularly, without significantly changing the resort or upsetting the delicate ecology of the beautiful surrounding land . For most of its life as a resort, Mountain Lake Hotel was open from late spring through early fall, however, shortly after the establishment of the trust, the resort began operating year - round . Currently, it is open from early May to late November and operated by 1859 Historic Hotels Inc., a hotel management company controlled by the Moody Foundation, an entity separate from the Mary Moody Northen Endowment . </P> <P> In past years, the lake levels have diminished due to a prolonged drought in Southwest Virginia and the geology that makes up the bottom of the lake . In October 2008, the lake receded to a pond status . During this time, the remains of Samuel Ira Felder were discovered in the bottom of the lake . He drowned in July 1921 when he fell overboard while canoeing with friends . </P> <P> Mountain Lake Hotel was the site for much of the on - location filming of the 1987 hit movie Dirty Dancing which starred Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey . The Stone Lodge stood in for "Kellerman's Resort", a fictional mountain retreat in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York . Like Kellerman's, the real Mountain Lake Hotel Resort also offers many indoor and outdoor activities for guests such as games like table tennis and billiards, water activities like paddle boating, canoeing, and fishing, and dry activities like mountain biking and hiking . </P> <P> The other site was the 1927 Lake Lure Inn located in Lake Lure, North Carolina . </P>

Where is the resort dirty dancing was filmed