Mark Luethi
Lake naomi
by Bob & Tanya Waite
We are excited! Tanya is packing and I am drinking my second cup of coffee, getting ready to go to the Poconos and visit Mountaintop Lodge at Lake Naomi. I plan our stops in my mind. We will get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and take the Northeast Extension. It is 9 a.m. and I am ready. “Hon,” I call from living room to the bedroom. “Are you ready yet.” I know she’s not but I want to get going. “I’m ready,” she replies. And there she is, all packed, dressed and is putting on her jacket.
The Turnpike is moving a little slow, but when we get to the Northeast Extension, we are cruising. The ride whizzes by. We pull into the rest stop in Allentown and grab a quick bite and our next stop is Mountain Top Lodge.
Arriving at Mountaintop Lodge, Communications and Marketing Manager Laura Altermose is there waiting to take us on a tour of Lake Naomi and show us some of the Lake Naomi Club amenities. It is a cold, damp and windy today. We get in her SUV and begin our tour of Lake Naomi.
The first stop on our tour is the Lake Naomi Clubhouse. On the top floor we look out a large glass window over beautiful Lake Naomi. From our vantage point, we see a large beach and to the left are docked boats. It turns out there are other beaches, some across the lake and visible from where we are standing.
Lake Naomi is beautiful. It covers 277 acres, and it is used by members of the Lake Naomi Club for boating, sailing, fishing and swimming. Photos of the beach on July 4 show the beach packed with people for a three-day Independence Day celebration. There are chairs with people sunning, boats are in the water and kids are swimming. The day we look on the lake’s wind rippled surface, there are only a few diehard fishermen in row boats. If it were a little colder, we would see ice skaters and little ice fishing huts.
Boats used on the lake cannot be motorized, the exception being electric powered boats. This keeps the lake safe and pristine. The houses that are situated around the lake are hidden by the trees and other flora giving the appearance of the water being surrounded by uninhabited forest.
The clubhouse is a center for the Lake Naomi community and its sister gated community Timber Trails. There is a restaurant and areas for games, and there is a game room with chairs and sofas for teenagers to gather. There is a café on the bottom floor. It has a rustic appearance and many community activities and event are held there.
Our next stop is the outdoor pool. Being a chilly day, Tanya and I were a little hesitant to get outside of Laura’s SUV. But, we really wanted to see it. There are actually two outdoor pools, one being the largest lakeside, heated outdoor pool in Pennsylvania. The pool during the summer has hundreds of chairs surrounding it and ledges with chairs that look on the lake. There is a large wading pool for the kiddies and an aquatic climbing wall.
Driving around the communities that surround Lake Naomi, we see homes that are used all year round and homes that are vacation homes. Some of the houses are cute cabins used for vacations, others are up for rent and used for vacations and some are quite large and can accommodate large extended families. The Club itself doesn’t sell real estate, but they promote the communities and bring people up to the Mountaintop Lodge where they can have temporary memberships and see for themselves the advantage of buying or renting a home at Lake Naomi.
We pass tennis courts, two golf courses, lots of beautiful scenery, and we see homes—some cleverly hidden from the road by trees and shrubbery. We listen intently as Laura tells us about all the things to do and the many events that there are at Lake Naomi, including the Kids’ Club program and sailing competitions. There is always something going on.
We visit to the Lake Naomi Community Center, which has an amazing fitness center, a large indoor swimming pool, rooms for crafts, and lots of space for activities. This center, bought by the communities, cost $7 million to build.
We head back to the Mountaintop Lodge and are checked in and given our temporary photo ID membership cards. Tanya, who won’t just go along with getting her picture taken, stalls the process while she straightens her hair and puts fresh lipstick on her lips. The photo IDs are given to us, and Tanya after looking at her card, says, “I hope I don’t have to show this to anyone.”
At the check-in desk we meet Carolyn, the friendly manager who pointed out several of the amenities including the fact that there are coffee and cookies available all night. She also shows us the Breakfast Room and the store, which is a stopping place in the morning for residents of Lake Naomi to get coffee.
We go to our room on the second floor. It is cozy yet has a large king-size bed and a large bathroom. There is a fireplaces that turns on and off with a timer and outside the window is a nice view of an apple tree that still has some fruit on it.
It is time to go to dinner at the Lake Naomi Clubhouse. The hospitality is ubiquitous from smiles at the door and check in to the friendly waitresses and the manager herself. We are seated and our waitress Laurie comes to the table. She treats us like VIPs, but not because we are so special, but because she treats everyone that way. She asks us what we want to drink. And we order sparkling water. We also order Shrimp Cocktail as an appetizer.
The shrimp comes with traditional cocktail sauce and Cajun remoulade. These jumbo shrimp are so fresh and so tender that I ask Tanya, “Is there an ocean nearby?” The cocktail sauce is perfect and I can taste the fresh horseradish, just enough to give it a kick. Tanya is so in love with the remoulade that she doesn’t even try the cocktail sauce.
For entrees, Tanya orders Seafood Provençal, and I order the 6 oz Filet Mignon topped with Lump Crab with Garlic Butter. Tanya starts with a Caesar Salad and I begin with Chicken Vegetable Soup.
The soup and salad are perfect. My steak, which has a Cabernet Demi-Glaze, mashed potatoes and broccoli is covered with lump crab meat. Tanya’s Seafood Provençal is full of expertly prepared shrimp, clams, mussels, scallops sautéed with plum tomatoes, basil, artichokes and baby spinach. It is served over linguini. My steak has to be the tenderest I’ve ever eaten and I once spent a week in Omaha. Tanya kept saying that her Seafood Provençal is “just so good.” We both agree that although we have eaten at many fine restaurants on our trips, the food at Lake Naomi is comparable to the best of them.
Elizabeth Foder, the manager of the Club’s restaurant and the events coordinator visits our table. She is busy helping the staff bring food to other tables and chatting with the customers who for the most part were regulars who lived at Lake Naomi and Timber Trails. She asks us how our stay has been and if she can be of any service to us. Tanya calls her “Sweetie,” an appellation she gives to people she instantly likes.
After dinner we go back to the Mountaintop Lodge and watch a movie on TV. Later I go downstairs and get a cup of coffee and a few cookies. Like the food in the restaurant, the sugar cookies are scrumptious, and as it gets late, I make the trip again to the coffee and cookie setup on the front desk.
We wake up late for breakfast, vowing we will go the next day. Our day consists of driving all over the Poconos, passing our favorite spots, taking photos and stopping at nearby stores. We spend a little time walking around Mount Pocono. And then after eating some pizza, we return. We are tired so we stay in.
Breakfast at Mountaintop Lodge is part of the stay, and it is as good as the food we ate at the clubhouse. The menu has various gourmet entries and several kinds of pancakes. We are ready to come home and do not want to get too full, so I have eggs over easy with sausage and Tanya has scrambled eggs with sausage. The food is done just right and is delicious.
Riding back to our beloved Bucks County we reminisce about our trip to Mountaintop Lodge at Lake Naomi and think about how nice it would be to have a cabin there and take part in all the activities and use the many amenities. It fades into our memory as we get off the Bensalem exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and know that we are home.
The Mountaintop Lodge is located at 2137 Route 940, Pocono Pines, PA 18350. for more information call 570-646-6636 or visit www.mountaintoplodge.com. For more information about Lake Naomi Club, visit www.lakenaomiclub.com.
Bob Waite is the editor of Bucks County Magazine and Tanya is his wife, travel companion and the co-writer of this department.