diff --git a/src/CMakeLists.txt b/src/CMakeLists.txt
index 0d37b08f9c..c14696c253 100644
--- a/src/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/src/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@ option(USE_MIMALLOC "use mimalloc" ON)
 # development-specific options
 option(CHECK_OLEAN_VERSION "Only load .olean files compiled with the current version of Lean" OFF)
 option(USE_LAKE "Use Lake instead of lean.mk for building core libs from language server" ON)
+option(USE_LAKE_CACHE "Use the Lake artifact cache for stage 1 builds (requires USE_LAKE)" OFF)
 
 set(LEAN_EXTRA_MAKE_OPTS  ""                           CACHE STRING "extra options to lean --make")
 set(LEANC_CC              ${CMAKE_C_COMPILER}          CACHE STRING "C compiler to use in `leanc`")
@@ -826,10 +827,13 @@ if(LEAN_INSTALL_PREFIX)
   set(CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX "${LEAN_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lean-${LEAN_VERSION_STRING}${LEAN_INSTALL_SUFFIX}")
 endif()
 
-if (STAGE GREATER 1)
+
+if (USE_LAKE_CACHE AND STAGE EQUAL 1)
+  set(LAKE_ARTIFACT_CACHE_TOML "true")
+else()
   # The build of stage2+ may depend on local changes made to src/ that are not reflected by the
   # commit hash in stage1/bin/lean, so we make sure to disable the global cache
-  string(APPEND LEAN_EXTRA_LAKEFILE_TOML "\n\nenableArtifactCache = false")
+  set(LAKE_ARTIFACT_CACHE_TOML "false")
 endif()
 
 # Escape for `make`. Yes, twice.
diff --git a/src/lakefile.toml.in b/src/lakefile.toml.in
index 75e3205dd8..758b397f03 100644
--- a/src/lakefile.toml.in
+++ b/src/lakefile.toml.in
@@ -16,6 +16,10 @@ buildType = "${CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE_TOML}"
 # The root of all the compiler output directories
 buildDir = "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}"
 
+# Enables the Lake artifact cache if configured via CMake
+# (i.e., for stage 1 when the CMake `USE_LAKE_CACHE` option is set).
+enableArtifactCache = ${LAKE_ARTIFACT_CACHE_TOML}
+
 # Ensure build artifacts end up in the build directory even when the Lake
 # local artifact cache is enabled. This is necessary because subsequent stages
 # will expect the previous stage's artifacts to be in the build directory.