Luray Caverns
— — the music the stone learned to hold.
Not only on a wall.
“A cavern the Cave Hill brothers cracked open with a tin lantern on an August afternoon in 1878. Inside, a quiet under the floor of the valley — Dream Lake holding the ceiling upside down, columns the colour of old candlewax, and an organ that plays the stalactites themselves. The hush down there is older than the road in.
Luray Caverns, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Luray Caverns sits beneath the town of Luray in Page County, Virginia, on the western flank of the Blue Ridge and the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Valley. The cavern was found on August 13, 1878 by Andrew Campbell, Benton Stebbins, and William Campbell, who lowered themselves through a sinkhole on Cave Hill. The system runs about 64 acres of mapped passage, with the tour route a paved mile-and-a-quarter loop. It is a Registered National Natural Landmark and the largest commercial cave in the eastern United States.
The signature room is Dream Lake — about a foot and a half deep at most, so still that the ceiling stalactites read as a second cave hanging below the floor. A few rooms on, the Great Stalacpipe Organ taps tuned stalactites with rubber mallets to play music inside the rock itself. Mathematician Leland W. Sprinkle built it between 1954 and 1956. Three and a half acres of formations sound when it plays. The room goes quiet on its own between notes.
Open daily year-round except Christmas. Self-paced guided tours run continuously from 9 a.m., with the last entry an hour or two before closing depending on season. The cavern holds at about 54°F (12°C) all year, so a light layer reads right in July and the same layer reads warm in February. The Garden Maze, Car & Carriage Caravan, and the Toy Town Junction are on the same grounds. The site is in the town of Luray, off U.S. 211, between Skyline Drive and the Massanutten ridge.