Crystal Spring Camp Meeting, laid out by G. W. Cunard, is affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, which has a long history of open-air preaching. The ten-acre site has hosted camp meetings since 1857. The present camp includes a frame hotel-like structure west of approximately one hundred cottages and two pavilions. The organization of these almost identical cottages, in a horseshoe pattern around the tabernacles, lends the ensemble rhythm and cohesiveness. Permanent wooden two-story cottages, referred to as “tents,” twelve feet wide, sixteen feet deep, and twelve feet high were built as needed. Each unit has a shingled roof and vertical weatherboarding, and was left unpainted to avoid ostentation. They are used only in the summer months and have no fireplaces or electricity. Every cottage owner automatically became a member, and most attended the yearly camp meeting.
The first tabernacle, built in 1888 by N. B. Hixson, is a simple gable-roofed pavilion about forty feet square with open sides. Benches under the trees face the pulpit. The second tabernacle is much larger and has sheltered benches. Both structures, used for public worship, have gable roofs supported by braced posts, with vertical siding in the gable ends. Despite all the frame buildings on the site, cutting timber was forbidden in the bylaws, as the beauty of the surrounding forest was and continues to be part of the spiritual experience of the camp meeting.