It was the ice cream that clinched it, though there are plenty of other reasons to visit Mount Gretna, Pa. The Victorian resort nestled among 4,000 wooded acres in Lebanon County offers natural and architectural beauty that’s hard to match. With Lake Conewago and a packed summer schedule of concerts, theater, festivals and lectures, Mount Gretna is surprisingly hopping for a town that barely stretches a mile.
But for me, the fact that Mount Gretna is home to the Jigger Shop— which serves the best ice cream sundae I have ever tasted— was all it took to rent a cottage for the week. Those fortunate enough to have scraped a spoon to the bottom of a Jigger sundae, understand the perfect ice cream harmony of vanilla ice cream smothered with chocolate or butterscotch sauce, doused with whipped marshmallow and topped with Jigger nuts. While the exact description is a century-old Jigger Shop secret, what I can reveal is that Jigger nuts are ground and roasted and possess a slightly bitter flavor that mixes perfectly with the sundae’s sweetness.
A little personal history: I grew up nearby in Harrisburg, and day trips for Jigger sundaes, miniature golf on Mount Gretna’s rustic course and ogling the tightly clustered Victorian cottages were a family summer tradition. It had been about a decade since I’d been, though, so when my beach-loathing husband mentioned his yen for a lake vacation, my mother reminded me of Mount Gretna.
The minute we turned onto Route 117 after exiting the Pennsylvania Turnpike— the last leg of the 100-mile trip from Baltimore— I knew I was home. The ferns lining the road were as green as I remembered. As we crested a hill on the two-lane country road, Mount Gretna stretched out before us, its scenery lit by sunlight filtered through pine trees. After a quick stop to pick up our rental key, we pulled up to a quaint, gray Victorian summer cottage on Harvard Avenue. Though the owners’ penchant for cat-themed decorating was a little unnerving, our home for the week was spacious, comfy and a two-minute walk down the hill to the Jigger Shop.
It was late Saturday afternoon by the time we unpacked and my mother, who lives 30 minutes away, arrived with groceries. Mount Gretna is so tiny that there’s not a grocery store in town, although a full-scale supermarket is only a 10-minute drive away.
Friends from Baltimore and my extended family also were joining us for a couple of days, so after stocking the fridge and taking inventory of the board games on the porch, we set out for a stroll through Mount Gretna’s gently sloping streets, ending up— where else?— on the deck of the Jigger Shop for a treat.
From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the 111-year-old ice cream parlor serves a light fare lunch and dinner menu (salads, wraps, crab cakes, hamburgers) in addition to unusual ice cream treats, such as bananas Foster, baked Alaska and peach melba. General manager and co-owner Drew Allwein got his start as a teenager working the soda fountain and busing tables on the large canopy-covered deck after his parents bought the place in 1963. Allwein attributes the Jigger Shop’s staying power to “a combination of tradition, good old-fashioned values and outrageous ice cream sundaes that no one’s ever seen before.” Each summer, the Jigger Shop’s 70 or so high school and college-aged employees scoop 14,000 gallons of ice cream, a third of which goes into Jiggers alone. “It’s a Norman Rockwell slice-of-life you just can’t find anywhere else,” he says.
He might as well be describing Mount Gretna itself. Established in 1892 as part of the national Chautauqua movement on wooded land later purchased from industrialist Robert Coleman, Mount Gretna is one of a few remaining Chautauquas in the United States. Founders envisioned programs in the arts, sciences and religion, and more than a century later, the daily summer schedule of activities doesn’t disappoint. The week we visited, we could choose from professional productions by Gretna Theatre and performances by nationally known classical and chamber musicians offered by Gretna Music, to a big band concert, painting and swing dancing classes, yoga, book discussions, a lecture on Buddhism and a free screening of Jimmy Cagney in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” And everything was within a five-minute walk.
The first night, we joined a packed house for a free performance of the Lebanon Big Swing Band. As fireflies flitted in and out of the open sides of the Mount Gretna Tabernacle, we listened to “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Skylark.” Like most of the buildings in Mount Gretna, the architecture was entertainment enough. The smooth pews of the timber-framed tabernacle— they can hold up to 1,000 people— are arranged stadium-style toward the pulpit. The vaulted roof is held up by 23 massive, stripped chestnut posts. Each summer brings the season-long Summer at the Tabernacle concert and speaker series hosted by the Mount Gretna Bible Festival and the Campmeeting Association’s Heritage Festival, which offers bluegrass, doo-wop and big band groups and Mount Gretna-themed historical lectures.
Other summer festivals are also big draws. In August, the juried Mount Gretna Outdoor Art Show takes over the lawn area in the center of town, attracting more than 10,000 people, and the annual Cicada Festival offers a week of eclectic, family-oriented concerts and old-time movies. Like everything else in Mount Gretna, even the cicadas are charming. The cicadas that inhabit Mount Gretna each summer aren’t the decibel-defying, tree-chomping every-17-year-insect orgy that Baltimore is used to, but melodic, evening-only background music.
Beyond several day trips to Hersheypark (a 15-mile drive away) and Sturgis Pretzel House in nearby Lititz, most of our days were spent at the Mount Gretna Lake and Beach enjoying Lake Conewago. My son and I rented inner tubes, swam and played on the sandy beach, while my nephew tested his nerve on one of six swimming docks and swings. Built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1880s (Mount Gretna once had been a training ground for the Pennsylvania State Militia), Lake Conewago’s 20 acres offer canoeing and kayaking, but no fishing since it’s drained every spring.
Early in the week, my husband and I enjoyed a one-man show about Frank Lloyd Wright, written and performed by Will Stutts, artistic director of Gretna Theatre. Established in 1927, the theater typically offers five plays and musicals a season, peppered with Monday evening shows and children’s productions. It draws its casts from local and New York Equity actors and national stars, such as recent performers Marion Ross and Sally Struthers. Performances in the Playhouse, a 750-seat timber building flanked by massive rhododendrons, are intimate, but you never lose the sense that you are surrounded by nature. The side walls of the Playhouse are open with tent flaps rolled down during performances. While we enjoyed the play, we heard the soft soundtrack of crickets chirping and people walking by (the latter are hushed politely by an usher). Occasionally a firefly lit across the stage.
Throughout the week, my son begged for daily trips to the Conewago Creek Miniature Golf Course in town. It was a pleasure to enjoy a course free of revolving windmills and fiberglass sharks and pirates, and the tree roots that grew on the course offering putting challenges during my youth had thankfully been removed. Playing in the evening was especially nice. The industrial lights strung through the trees cast a nice glow on the simple course.
The young man renting clubs and balls asked where we were from. “No one in Baltimore knows where Mount Gretna is,” he said with a laugh after professing a great love for the Inner Harbor. “A lot of people in Harrisburg don’t know we’re here.”
On Thursday, we caught a different kind of show at the Timbers Restaurant and Dinner Theatre. A perky, talented cast from college musical theater programs around the country belted out a revue of show tunes and golden oldies. We watched from the candlelit dining room and bar upstairs, enjoying steak dinners. When we tried to pay by credit card, we were told that it’s cash only, but that we could just send a check when we got home.
Our last night in Mount Gretna coincided with the only night one of the town’s more curious attractions, the Mount Gretna Roller Rink, was open. Set back off the road past the golf course, the roller rink is an 1890s barn that was converted in the 1920s into Lebanon County’s only roller rink. Owners Joan and Rich Werner harbor no illusions about the appeal of the cavernous rink with carpeted walls and pumping soundtrack of country, hard rock and dance club music.
“The summer crowd doesn’t usually come roller-skating,” chuckles Joan Werner. We had a blast, though, skating around with local teenagers and sitting in the church pews that line the center of the rink. Because it’s not air-conditioned— the reason for the Friday-night-only summer schedule— we worked up a sweat.
After skating, we sat on the crowded deck of the Jigger Shop. There was packing to do, but at that moment, my most pressing engagement was waiting for our order number to be called so I could dive into my farewell Jigger. Every spoonful had to last— at least until the next summer.
DETAILS Mount Gretna is a year-round resort, but the cultural arts schedule and lake activities run from Memorial Day to Labor Day only. See http://www.mtgretna.com for tourist information.
Getting there: From Baltimore, it took us about two hours to drive up Route 83 North to the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading east. We exited the Turnpike at Exit 266, PA Route 72 and took 72 north to Route 117 into Mount Gretna.
STAY To rent a cottage, contact Penn Realty,, 717-964-3800 or , or Emi Snavely at Brownstone Real Estate Co., 717- 270-1515 or . Rentals in the Campmeeting section tend to be cheaper than the Chautauqua section. Rates for a week in the summer range from $500 to $1,000. The Mount Gretna Inn, 717-964-3234 or http://www.mtgretnainn.com, offers seven rooms year-round. It’s a 10-minute drive to Mount Gretna from the Hampton Inn in Manheim, 717-665-6600. To locate other hotels nearby, visit http://www.visitlebanoncounty.com.
EAT The Jigger Shop, 717-964-9686, http://www.jiggershop.com, lunch and dinner summer only. Le Sorelle, 717-964-3771, http://www.porchandpantry.com, is good for lunch and breakfasts of omelets, pancakes and homemade pastries. Timbers Restaurant and Dinner Theatre, 717-964-3601, is open year-round, but the shows are summer-only. The Mount Gretna Hide-a-Way Café, 717-964-3170 or http://www.mtgretnahideaway.com, is also year-round and offers a tavern and deck with a full lunch and dinner menu of salads, burgers, sandwiches and entrees.
PLAY Though quaint and quiet, Mount Gretna is far from sleepy. For cultural events, contact Gretna Music, 717-361-1508 or http://www.mtgretna.com/music, Gretna Theatre, 717-964-3322 or http://www.mtgretna.com/ theatre, Summer at the Tabernacle Program, http://www.mtgretnatabernacle.org, the Mount Gretna Outdoor Art Show, http://www.mtgretnaarts.com, The Cicada Festival , 717-964-2046, the Heritage Festival, 717-964-3040. For a full calendar of events, including those events sponsored by the Mount Gretna Chautauqua Association, go to http://www.mtgretna.com and click on “Arts Council Summer Calendar.”
There’s lots to do outside of Mount Gretna, as well. Both Lebanon County (http://www.visitlebanoncounty.com) and neighboring Lancaster County (http://www.padutchcountry.com) offer many attractions and activities. The nearby Mount Hope Estate and Winery in Manheim hosts daily wine tastings and the 11-week Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire beginning in mid-August, 717-665-7021 or http://www.parenfaire.com.
Once in Mount Gretna, give your car a rest. Mount Gretna is perfect for walking and biking (bring your own), but if you want to ride in style, call Dave Albertson of Albertson’s Carriage Co., 717-665-3180, for a horse-drawn carriage ride through Mount Gretna. Outdoor activities abound from lake activities at Mount Gretna Lake and Beach, 717-964-3130 or http://www.mtgretnalake.com, to the trails and 60-foot observation tower in the 1,105-acre Governor Dick Park, http://www.parkatgovernordick.org. Bike and hike on the 14-mile Lebanon Valley Rail-to-Trail, http://www.lvrailtrail.com, stretching from Cornwall to the Lebanon-Lancaster County border on the old Coleman-Lebanon Railroad line. Beyond testing your golf skills at Conewago Creek Miniature Golf Course, two public courses are nearby: Iron Valley Golf Course (717-279-7409) and Treetop Golf Course (717-665-6262).
