Lakeview is an unincorporated area of Moore County located around Crystal Lake, southwest of the Town of Vass. The Lakeview post office is located at 278 Camp Easter Road, Lakeview, NC 28350.
Beginnings [1]
In 1903 a Boston entrepreneur, Harvey M. Holleman, went into partnership with turpentine businessman Percy L. Gardner and formed the Lakeview Townsite Company. They purchased 1,000 acres of farmland around Blue's Mill, a grist mill on a tributary of the Little River adjacent to the Seaboard Air Line Railway and U.S. Highway 1. They enlarged the mill dam into Crystal Lake, and laid out a small resort of gridded house lots and a hotel site around the lake, with sites for manufacturing along the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad tracks that paralleled the south shore of the lake. The railroad, an active participant in the promotion of the Moore County resort trade, built a Lakeview depot at the site. A number of individuals, most from New York and New England, built winter residences in the first few years to enjoy the mild winters, boating, fishing, and swimming. Among these were Percy Gardner, William E. Youland, a merchant from Maine, and B. D. Usshur, an Episcopal bishop from Massachusetts. The Lakeview Hotel, the resort's original inn, burned in 1911 and was quickly replaced that same year by a new building that also burned in 1911. The resort experienced a lull until the early 1920s, when Pinehurst businessman James L. Barber took ownership of the lake and recreational facilities. In 1923, Barber built the resort's third hotel, Lakeview Inn (demolished in 1983), a grand lodge with a ballroom that became famous for its summer evening dances. The 1920s and early 1930s marked the apogee of Lakeview's popularity as a summer resort for swimming, boating, and dancing.