2011 Smith Mountain Lake Charity Home Tour

An annual Smith Mountain Lake event is an October charity home tour.  I’ve never had the opportunity to go on the tour until this year.  The great thing about this tour is you can travel from house to house by either car or boat.  It was a beautiful day, so we traveled by boat.

I snapped these photos from our dock while Mr. SP prepared the boat.  It’s starting to look like fall!

What a great day to be on the lake!

The first home that we toured is owned by the Trotter family.  The area over the garage is a huge grandchildren area.  The homeowner is a former elementary principal, and you can tell it by the room’s organization.  The homeowner also made all of her own window treatments, pretty impressive! 

It’s too bad that interior photos are not allowed.  This home has a beautiful kitchen with hickory cabinets that I would have loved to photograph.  It also had a nice sunroom off of the kitchen that overlooks the lake.  The basement included a family room/tv watching/bar area that all overlooked the lake.  The homeowner’s craft room in the basement was really nice, too! 

The landscaping around this home was very pretty. Note the buffer area of plants between the lake and house, very environmentally friendly.

The gazebo is a recent addition to the dock.  I can imagine that the homeowners have enjoyed many an hour here.  My mom and I took a minute to enjoy the view.

Next on our tour was the Tanner home.  I loved the covered porch that you can see in this photo on the back of the house.  This home is large but still felt comfortable.  The basement had a kitchen and bathroom just inside the door, very handy for lake living.

The Tanners founded the SML Waterski Club. 

They have a sandy beach to enjoy, too!

Here’s the front of the house.  Note the open door, you could peek in to see his and hers Harleys and a fancy sports car on a lift.  I think that these homeowners like to have a good time!

This shot shows the view of the home, dock, and lake from the top of their driveway.

Next door to the Tanner home is the Chisholm home, also on the tour.  It was nice to dock the boat and be able to tour two homes.

This home has a wonderful basement area with a full kitchen and two bedrooms.  The covered seating area on both levels in the rear of the home have pretty views of the lake.

We had to skip the DeLooper-Johnson home because the area around the dock was so shallow that we hit a rock.  Mr. SP was NOT happy and feared that we did damage to our boat and prop.  We got out of there and thankfully the boat was ok.

Next on the tour was Erler home, inspired by the Gamble House, a famous Arts and Crafts period home in CA.  If you like houses, be sure to click on the link to look at the photos of this historic home. 

This home was our favorite.  We loved the wood both inside and outside.

This home has a great area in the back for enjoying lake views with a sitting area and fire pit.

The landscaping around this home is very natural looking. 

This shot of the fire pit shows off the pretty views of the lake.  You can tell by our smiles that Mama and I are having a good time on this tour!

Here’s the home from the water.

Riding along, enjoying the views, noting the change in season – This is the life!

The Fiske home was next on our tour.  This home is large, 11,000 square feet large.  It went on and on and had every feature that you could imagine including a 15 seat theater.  Who wouldn’t want to be a guest here?

What a view!

This outdoor hot tub looks quite inviting.

Hot tub view!

We had to hustle to see the last two houses.  Going by boat was fun, but we had to wait at almost every house for a dock spot.  I forgot to photograph the Pollock home.  We liked the practical but comfortable design of this home.  The basement featured a family room that overlooks the lake.  The homeowner has a toy soldier collection that has its own room over the garage.

The last house was the one that I most wanted to see because it features shingles made from Poplar bark.  We didn’t have much tour time here because we arrived ten minutes before the tour day ended.  The time of day wasn’t the best for picture taking.

Look carefully and you’ll notice the Poplar bark shingles.

This home was also very comfortable and featured pretty antiques, many from Belgium.

It was a fabulous day on the lake and also a great tour.  I’ll definitely want to do this tour next year.  It’s fun to see the interior of some of the homes that I see from the lake while we are cruising.

My next home tour will probably be a Christmas one in my mom’s town.

Do you enjoy tours?  I sure do!