Jenkinsville · South Carolina · Lake Monticello
Your next family adventure is written in the stars.
Two geodesic glamping domes on a private peninsula at Lake Monticello, named the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. Water on three sides, a gravel road on the fourth, and a skylight over the bed for the reason you would expect.
6,700 acres of water · 54 miles of shoreline · 2 domes · 1 peninsula
Two minutes each
Look before you book.
Both domes, filmed on an ordinary day rather than a staged one. What separates them is mostly which end of the peninsula you wake up on.
| Big Dipper | Little Dipper | |
| Beach | Sunset Beach, facing west | Sunrise Beach, facing east |
| Across | 15 meters | 10 meters |
| Sleeps | 10 | 6 |
| Bedrooms | Three, plus a loft | One, plus a loft |
| Bathrooms | Two full | One full, one half |
| The light | The last hour of it, across the water | The first of it, off flat water |
Take both and that is sixteen people, two beaches and the whole peninsula.
Why this lake
Quiet here is a rule, not luck.
Lake Monticello stays calm almost all the time. Motorized sport is not allowed on its 6,700 acres, so there are no jet skis and no water skiing, and the water is left to itself.
That is why the sunrise photographs on this site look the way they do. Glass-flat water is not a lucky morning here, it is Tuesday.
The dark is the other half of it. The nearest town is far enough away that nothing bleeds into the sky, so the stars come out properly. There is a telescope in the Big Dipper and a skylight over the bed in both domes, and on a clear night you will not need either to see the Milky Way.
Nothing is built on the lake either. No restaurants, no bars, no marina strip. You bring what you need and cook it in a full kitchen, which is rather the point of glamping: the quiet of a tent with none of the discomfort. Thirty-three private acres, two domes, and a hay field a local farmer still cuts.
We keep the domes the same way. They are for the people staying in them, so no events or parties without prior approval. It is the whole reason a place like this is worth the drive from Columbia, thirty-five minutes south.
Worth knowing before you tie anything up: the station’s pumps can move the lake level a couple of feet in an hour or two. It won’t bother you on the dock.
Pick your dome
Named for what’s overhead.
Each constellation leads to the dome that carries its name. The Big Dipper sits above Sunset Beach and the Little Dipper above Sunrise Beach, a short walk apart, with everything in between shared between them.
Big Dipper
Sleeps 10 · 3 bedroomsThree king bedrooms, two queens up in the loft, and a wall of triangular glass aimed at the water.
Little Dipper
Sleeps 6 · 1 bedroomA king bedroom, a queen sofa bed, two twins up the spiral staircase, and the deck that sits closest to the shoreline.
Polaris
Eclipse tent · under constructionA stargazing tent with the same amenities as the domes, going in on the same peninsula. Ask us and we’ll tell you where it’s up to.
15 m across
The larger one · Sunset Beach
Big Dipper
The whole lake-facing side of this dome is glass, cut into triangles, and the sofas point straight at it. It sits on Sunset Beach at the western end, which is how it got the name: the last hour of light comes in across the water and fills the room.
There’s a wood stove in the middle of the floor, a skylight over the bed, and a telescope by the window that guests actually use, because there is very little out here to compete with the sky.
| Sleeps | 10 — three king bedrooms, two queens in the loft |
| Beach | Sunset Beach — west, over the water |
| Bathrooms | Two full, one with a double vanity |
- Wood stove
- Hot tub on the deck
- Stone fire pit
- Full kitchen and laundry
- Skylight over the bed
- Arcade cabinets and a telescope
The smaller one · Sunrise Beach
Little Dipper
This one sits lower and closer, right where the ground drops away to the water, so the lake fills most of what you can see from the deck. It sits on Sunrise Beach, facing east, and the name is the obvious one: the light arrives here first, off glass-flat water.
A black spiral staircase goes up to a loft with a Pac-Man cabinet in it, and there is a skylight to look up through once the lamp is off.
| Sleeps | 6 — a king bedroom, two twins in the loft, and a queen sofa bed |
| Beach | Sunrise Beach — east, at the water’s edge |
| Bathrooms | One full, one half |
- Wood stove
- Hot tub on the deck
- Fire pit
- Full kitchen and laundry
- Skylight over the bed
- Closest to the shoreline
10 m across
Between the two domes
Everything in the middle belongs to both.
The land between the domes isn’t left over, it’s the reason most families book. A sand beach, a dock built out over the water, and a mini golf course that wraps the whole way around a playset.
Putting course, playset, trampoline, giant checkers, cornhole.
Built-in benches, deep enough to swim off, open water in front.
Sand, shade, a picnic table and a shallow entry for small kids.
What guests say
The dock gets mentioned every time.
Reviews carried over from our Airbnb listings. If you have stayed with us, we would rather you said the specific thing you remember than that it was lovely.
A sentence or two from a real review goes here. The ones that work hardest name one specific thing rather than saying the whole stay was lovely.
Guest name · Month year
Paste a second review here. Different length to the first is good — it stops the row looking like a template.
Guest name · Month year
And a third. Reviews that mention the quiet, the sunrise or the kids having somewhere to go tend to be the ones that convert.
Guest name · Month year
Off the peninsula
Columbia is close. Nothing else is.
You can be at Riverbanks Zoo in about forty minutes or 100 miles of ATV trail in twenty. You can also stay put for three days, which is what most people end up doing.
20 minutes
Carolina Adventure World
2,600 acres and more than 100 miles of trail for ATVs, UTVs and dirt bikes, in Winnsboro. The largest riding park in the Southeast.
25 minutes
The Broad River trestle
The Palmetto Trail crosses the Broad on an 1,100-foot railway bridge at Alston. Bald eagles work the river below it. There’s a canoe launch at the trailhead.
1 hour
Congaree National Park
Old-growth floodplain forest with some of the darkest skies on the East Coast, and a dark-sky program run with USC astronomers.
Also ours
Two more places, two more skies.
A cabin near the top of Nancy Mountain in North Carolina, and a lakehouse on Lake Murray half an hour down the road. Same family looking after all of them.
Book direct and we both keep the difference.
No platform fee, and you’re talking to the people who own the place rather than a support queue.