On a gently sloping, 3-plus-acre piece of forested property at the northeast edge of Martis Camp, Scandinavian design principles of function and simplicity were folded into Sierra materiality and lifestyle with a heaping tablespoon of family retreat added on top. The outcome is a quiet...
It takes a unique and discerning eye to see potential where others see only impediment. Such is the story with a linear lakefront lot in Lahontan that many others passed on as too restrictive. That is, until Jack Myers, renowned Hawaiian and South San Francisco...
On Valhalla Drive in Martis Camp—the lodestone of modern mountain architecture in the Truckee-Tahoe region—one can easily spot a little spur just off the road called Wyntoon Court. For the uninitiated, it may seem strange that a truncated dead-end road boasting just a handful of the...
Twenty-four years ago, Sharon and Steve Ing met at a Los Angeles art gallery. Sharon was working as an art dealer and helped Steve purchase a piece, one of a naked woman sitting in a chair, her face shadowed. The deal led to courtship and...
At some point in 1863, Mark Twain caught a horrible cold. Recounted in his essay How to Cure A Cold, Twain describes his travels from Virginia City, Nevada, to Lake Bigler (Tahoe) to Steamboat Hot Springs (between Reno and Carson City) and finally to San...
Snow is falling from the sky in thick curtains of white, when Mike Basich yanks the pull cord on his snowmobile and the engine growls to life. Daylight is fading, but his snowmobile’s headlight casts a warm cone of brilliant yellow out in front of him,...
When an aging Incline Village vacation home was ready for a long overdue update, its Bay Area owners set out to give the generations-old extended family gathering spot a makeover that both preserved its cherished past and created a refreshed retreat firmly focused on the...
In 2014, San Francisco architect Steve Geiszler sat down with a Bay Area client he’d collaborated with on two previous projects in the city to discuss the client’s Martis Camp lot. “We were working this out together,” Geiszler says. “We went through the programming [how many...
In the 1970s and ’80s, many of Tahoe’s top athletes, including some of the world’s fastest speed skiers and most influential rock climbers, lived in a harmonious community on the banks of the Truckee River. Their waterfront dwellings were modest. But given the location, surrounded...
Scherry Harrah, second wife of famed casino pioneer Bill Harrah, had the longest marital tenure of Harrah’s six wives (21 years) and according to her 2000 obituary in the LA Times, she had considerable involvement in the finishing and outfitting of Harrah’s Reno and Tahoe...