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Excerpted
from Central
PA magazine, June 2007
From Pine Road, at the foot of South Mountain, it looks a bit like a medieval castle, looming high atop a wooded ridge.
It’s not as big as most castles, and not nearly as old, but the Kings Gap mansion is impressive nevertheless. It wasn’t built by royalty, unless you count barons of industry. James McCormick Cameron, grandson of U.S. Senator Simon Cameron and an heir to the family’s banking, steel, printing and railroad fortune, constructed the 200-foot-long, 32-room stone villa southwest of Carlisle around 1908. In the 1950s it passed into the hands of the C.H. Masland & Son carpet company of Carlisle and, through the Nature Conservancy, was acquired by the Commonwealth in 1973. Today the mansion and 1,450 surrounding acres constitute the Kings Gap Environmental Education & Training Center, part of the Pennsylvania State Parks system.
“Despite the fact that the property has existed for about 100 years, a lot of people in the area don’t even know what’s here,” says Gina Padilla, program coordinator at Kings Gap. As first-time visitors drive the winding four-mile road up the mountain, she says, “The thing that surprises them is the beauty and the serenity. You’re going further and further back in, and when you get to the top of the mountain you have this beautiful vista.”
After enjoying the Cumberland Valley panorama from the mansion’s stone patio, Padilla suggests wandering around on the grounds a bit. “We have a garden that has a wildlife habitat area, an herb garden, a meadow area and a little pond. The whole point is to show people what they can do with their own yard. And then I would recommend going down to the Pond Use Area and taking a walk along the Watershed Trail. It’s a gently rising trail [along] a pretty little stream, lots of mini-waterfalls, ferns in the warm months, lots of birds. It’s very idyllic, a little glenlike feeling — you’re tucked in there, quiet, shady and lush.”
The Watershed Trail is part of the park’s 16 miles of hiking paths, which are all interconnected so that many different looping routes are possible. For those who would prefer to be accompanied in the woods, guided walks are offered frequently. “We’re really trying to develop activities to encourage people to get out and be more physically active,” Padilla notes. “We have a ranger who’s an avid backpacker and hiker, and he’s developed new hiking programs.” On one popular outing, visitors walk the six-mile Buck Ridge Trail to Pine Grove Furnace State Park, where they are picked up by a van and returned to Kings Gap for a Sunday brunch in the mansion.
As an environmental education center, Kings Gap provides programs for a wide variety of groups, from preschoolers to senior citizens. During the school year, teacher workshops and activities for school classes are constantly underway. “We don’t charge for educational programs for school groups,” Padilla says, adding that they must be scheduled six to nine months in advance. Expert speakers give public presentations on subjects ranging from mountain lions to astronomy to reptiles and amphibians to photography.
“Our summer day-camp programs have been going on for years,” Padilla adds. “It’s an extended period of time for kids to have guided exploration of the outdoors, and it’s a way to socialize with kids who are similarly interested. It’s not that there’s one kid in the group who’s really into bugs — they’re all into bugs, and they support and feed each other’s interest.” Camps run three days a week, two hours a day for four- to eight-year-olds, six hours a day for nine- through 12-year-olds.
The ground floor of the mansion itself is open to visitors as long as no group is using it for a meeting. The second floor contains mostly lodging facilities. After extensive renovations, the mansion can now be booked for weddings, receptions, group meetings and retreats, and Kings Gap offers its own Mountain Retreat weekends. “For many years when people came up here to visit, they said, ‘Oh, I’d love to stay here sometime,’” Padilla says. During the Mountain Retreats, held four times this year, “You can stay from Friday evening until Sunday noon. There is a minimal amount of structured activity to participate in or not, as you prefer.”
The two fall retreats include an optional trip to nearby Waggoners Gap to observe the raptor migration. But for the most part, Padilla comments, “We found that people really just wanted to come and stay put, relax and just do their own thing right here.”
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