Overnight January 26, 2025, there was a big fire at Coolfont, a longtime resort and vacation spot west of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia on Cold Run Valley Road. The flames took down the twin A-frames that were Treetop House. Fortunately, no one was injured and firefighters from multiple companies and jurisdictions did a commendable job to put out the fire and keep the flames from spreading. This is a tough loss for the Omps family that had purchased and rebuilt the resort after the property sat idle for many years.
Having grown up in Berkeley Springs I had a love/hate relationship with Coolfont that eventually evened out as I grew and understood the benefits of having an employer and a destination property to support the local economy.
Coolfont wasn't just a camping area. They made a point in their signage and literature that it was Coolfont Re+Creation. Not merely recreation, but a place to re-create yourself. In addition to campsites,
there were a handful of chalet-style cabins.
Eventually they built a lodge across from Treetop House.
I don’t know exactly when Sam Ashelman moved to Morgan
County and bought the Herbert Quick farm property and the acres around
there. It was certainly a going business
by the mid1960s. My uncle, Ed Carroll, brought
his family up to visit and they camped there.
My cousin Jon called it Cool-fart, a name that lived on in our
family.
I remember going to Coolfont to swim and have picnics with
the Nichols family and other friends. In
addition to swimming and fishing, they also rented canoes and paddle
boats. The paddle boats were all named
for famous shipwrecks: Titanic, Lusitania, Andrea Doria, there might have been
a fourth boat.
My sister Teresa got
a job working in the office in Meadow House.
I don’t know everyone who worked there, but I seem to think that Frani
Willard and Al Capen both worked in that building. One of the features of Meadow House was a
glass case that held two black snakes named Bilbo and Frodo. One day one of the guys who worked at
Coolfont walked in and called out, “Hey Teresa!” and flung a long rubber snake
at her. My sister raised her hand and
caught it. I think the guy was
disappointed that she didn’t scream.
A few years later my brother Steve started working as a
dishwasher at the Treetop House restaurant.
My brother was quite the philosopher it seems. One of his coworkers told me once that Steve
remarked on a very busy day, said, Ours is not to reason why, ours is just
to wash and dry.
Coolfont was successful as a rustic resort and
campground. The Ashelmans started to
develop the mountainside and subdivided the land into plots. They aimed to keep the natural wooded
environment. Homes had to blend in with
the environment and minimal tree removal.
My dad, Dwan McBee, was a local insurance agent and he got
his Realtor® license and worked on weekends to talk to potential
homebuyers. He had a table set up just
inside the main doors of the Treetop House.
He had binders with photos of model homes and map showing the
mountainside with all the lots.
It was during this time that I started spending a lot of
time at Coolfont. I’d go with my dad on
Sundays. He would work and I would find
a place to read and finish my homework.
In warmer weather I could sit at a table on the deck. It was a great place to hang out. There was a string quartet in residence at
one point and I could sit and listen to them rehearse and perform. The music was so exciting.
Frani Willard organized a weekly hootenanny for the
guests. Frani played the guitar and
sang. My dad also played guitar and
sang. Sometimes my sister would join
them. I didn’t go every Saturday night,
but I went pretty regularly, and I knew so many of the songs. Frani would sing a version of Frankie and
Johnnie, Charlie ant the MTA, and Clouds. My dad had a few regular tunes he liked to
sing: Scotch and Soda and Smoke that Cigarette.
Al Capen worked at Coolfont.
I have no idea what his job title was.
He was a writer, photographer, and naturist. He would take photos and give nature talks. Al took beautiful photos of trees, wildflowers,
and birds. He was a brilliant storyteller,
and he would combine the stories about nature with his slides.
One series of photographs that left a lasting impression was
about trees and barbed wire. He said
that when farmers would clear a field for grazing, they’d run barbed wire around
the field to keep the herd from wandering.
The farmers would erect fence posts, but sometimes they would just tack
the barbed wire to a tree. As the trees
continued to grow, it often looked as though the trees were chewing on the
barbed wire. Some of the photographs looked
like real faces chewing on something. He’d
usually end with a photo of a tree that he said had gotten rid of the barbed
wire. The tree showed a scar in the bark
that looked like a big smile!
In 1975 I met a friend who would change my life. Lorraine Hall and her husband Jack bought one
of the mountainside lots and built a home there. I met Lorraine through a church choral
group. In time I met Jack and their
daughter Jeanne and her children, and their son John. By knowing Jack and Lorraine I saw Coolfont
from a different perspective. Lorraine
was friends with Margaret Ashelman.
Through Margaret, Coolfont became a center for Transcendental
Meditation. The Ashelman’s also established
the Coolfont Foundation that supported music performances at Treetop House, the
Manor House and at the barn. Among the
guest artists who performed at Manor House were pianists Neil Tilkens and Peter
Basquin.
After I moved to Washington, DC for work, I 'd meet people who would ask me were I was from. Many times when I mentioned Berkeley Springs, WV, people would recognize the town from their knowledge of Coolfont.
The Ashelman family continued to own and operate Coolfont
for many years. Eventually they sold the
property to another developer who died in a helicopter accident in the early
2000s. The recession that hit around
that time kept any further development until the Omps family bought the property
and breathed new life into the resort.
So many people in Morgan County worked at Coolfont and many
others who visited and enjoyed the facilities.
These are just some of my memories.
