Lake Hartwell and Keowee

[seveet]

I am looking in to a job near these lakes. I am looking from some information about these lakes. opinions appreciated. Thx

[Evening Shade]

Both are nice lakes, but Keowee takes top honors. It's one of the cleanest lakes in the southeast. The water is absolutely beautiful. Hartwell is a really nice lake too, but water levels fluctuate more at Hartwell than Keowee. When there is a drought Hartwell can drop more than 10ft in a 6 month period.

I'm sure others can give more info than I, but I have been to Keowee for a week lake vacation a couple years ago. We were gonna go to Harwell this summer and were really concerned that the water would be so low that we wouldn't be able to use the dock at the house we rented. We ended up cancelling that trip because we ended up buying a house on Lake Greenwood, SC.

We have had a lot of rain this summer so Hartwell has come up a good bit.

[heel5man]

We live in Greenville and have a lake home on Keowee. I used to live on Hartwell as well.

Both are great lakes! Hartwell has 1,000 miles of shoreline across two states, so one of the biggest lakes in the region. Very active lake with lots of room to recreate. And Evening Shade is right, water levels can fluctuate a good bit depending on drought conditions and power production needs. Hartwell's shoreline is managed by the Army Corp of Engineers and parts of Clemson University sit on the shores of Hartwell.

Keowee is a little slice of heaven. As Evening Shade mentioned, the water is crystal clear and actually potable! Shoreline is managed by Duke Power with both hydro and nuclear energy production. Much less water level fluctuation on average.

The south end is near a small town called Seneca with big box stores and restaurants. The north end is in the foothills and remote, but even more gorgeous. It's a smaller lake and can get crowded, especially on the more narrow north end during a busy Summer weekend.

But there's no place on earth my family would rather be. The price of real estate is typically higher on Keowee, with waterfront homes averaging $600-700k and topping out in the $3-4 million range.

North of Keowee is a lake called Jocassee that is on National Geographic's list of last 50 great places on earth. It's also been called Lake Tahoe of the east.

Hartwell is much more affordable in contrast with houses in the $300k average

Message me if I can help in any way.
Marc


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[swankster]

I had my boat on Keowee from 1990 to 1995 and loved that lake. We lived on the southwest side by Seneca. The water was clean and back then it wasn't that crowed, so we were able to find smooth water most of the time in one of the coves. I'm sure it is more crowed now; looking on Google Earth there are a lot more houses. The water level is more constant than Hartwell which is a ACOE lake but you have a nuclear power plant on the lake and that bothers some people. We built and maintained a ski course in a cove and most of the time people respected it. Back then houses on the lake were ranging $300 to $400.

Lake Hartwell will give you more choices as you can live on the SC side near Clemson or Anderson or the GA side near Toccoa but I've seen the docks on the Toccoa side on the ground for several months.

If we every get back there, I would go back to Keowee.