Originally built for a destination resort on the lake, the lodge is currently operated by the City of Maple Valley.

[2] In the early 1900s, a homesteader whose property was on the shore of Lake Wilderness offered a few rental cabins on his farm to fishermen and hunters.

They later bought two adjacent resort properties and combined them all into a complex of about sixty rental cabins that offered indoor and outdoor recreation, including boat rentals, a golf course, a bowling alley, a dance hall, a roller rink, and a restaurant.

[3] As part of their modernization effort after the end of the war, the Gaffneys hired the architecture firm of Young, Richardson, Carleton & Detlie to design the new lodge.

[2] The architecture firm won first honor awards from American Institute of Architects in 1952 for Gaffney's Lake Wilderness Lodge.