The Lodge on Lake Oconee | Lakefront Condo-Hotel on Hwy 44, Eatonton GA

The Lodge sits on its own small cove just off Highway 44 on the Putnam County side, a short drive south of the Hwy 44 bridge. The address is 930 Greensboro Road, which you will also see written as 930 Lake Oconee Parkway, since both are names for the same stretch of Highway 44.

You take a left off Highway 44 on your way to Eatonton. The Lodge’s parking lot runs into the lot for the Italian Chophouse on Lake Oconee next door, so dinner is a walk across the pavement.

It is in the middle of a busy part of the lake. Pinnacle Pointe is right across the street, the restaurants and shops along Highway 44 are minutes away, the new Publix in Putnam County is a short drive, and Fish Tales Marina is just over the bridge. Cuscowilla and Harbor Club are both close for golf.

The land under The Lodge was platted as part of Hidden Lake, and the Hidden Lake at Lake Oconee neighborhood basically sits behind it. The few lakefront homes in that neighborhood look across to it.

From the parking lot, The Lodge looks like what it is, a hotel. There is a covered drive-up entrance, a front desk and luggage carts by the door. Guests check in for a night or a week, eat breakfast in the morning and spend the afternoon at the pool or down at the dock.

But the Lodge is set up as a condo-hotel. A portion of the rooms are condominiums that can be purchased, each with its own tax bill, and the hotel runs the front desk, the cleaning and the bookings. Owners decide whether their unit sits in the rental pool earning money from hotel guests or stays available for their own trips to the lake.

Currently, of the 81 rooms, the hotel’s owner holds 53 and rents them as regular hotel rooms. The other 28 belong to individual owners, and a few of them have kept their rooms since the first ones sold in 2006.

The units are hotel rooms, and buying one means buying a hotel room. They are studios of roughly 324 to 420 square feet with a bed, a bathroom, a mini fridge and a microwave, and they usually sell furnished. There is no full kitchen, and these are not built to be a full-time house.

What you get in return is a lake getaway with almost nothing to manage. The association dues on the current listings are $320 a month, and listings have described them as covering electric, water, cable and landscaping. When you are not using your unit, you can place it in the hotel’s rental program, and the management company handles the reservations, the housekeeping and the maintenance. Short-term rentals are allowed here, which is not the case in many Lake Oconee neighborhoods.

The busy weeks are the ones you would expect: Masters week in Augusta, summer weekends, the Fourth of July and the fall.

Units at The Lodge are the least expensive condos on the lake right now. The first rooms sold new in 2006 for about $135,000 to $165,000. Prices bottomed out around $50,000 from 2018 through 2020, then climbed back, with a sale at $90,000 in 2023 and another at $78,250 in June 2026. Two are listed right now, in the $80,000s.

If you are here because you need a room for a weekend at the lake, The Lodge is a family-friendly hotel with a casual feel. The rooms range from standard rooms with two queens or a king up to suites, spa tub rooms and multi-room family suites, and some look out over the lake.

Breakfast is included. The pool is open in season, and there is a sauna and a fitness center. You can call the hotel at (706) 485-7785 or book through The Lodge on Lake Oconee website. The Lodge also hosts small groups, from wedding parties and family reunions to company retreats and small fishing tournaments, using its great room for gatherings.

The Lodge is one of the few hotels on Lake Oconee where you can bring your boat. There are eight boat slips on the cove for owners and guests to tie up, and a big lot out front for trucks, trailers and RVs. In season the hotel rents canoes and kayaks, and the fire pit at the water’s edge is where most evenings end.

If you do not have a boat, the rental outfits around Highway 44 can put you on the water for the day, and the marinas for fuel and supplies are a few minutes away.