A stunning home on Donner Lake showcases a beautiful partnership between design, build and nature

A firepit on the elevated back deck offers a perfect gathering area to soak in the incredible view of Donner Lake

Ryan Marsden, president and principal architect at Marsden Architects, only recently began exploring Donner Memorial State Park.

“I’ve lived in Tahoe for 14 years,” he says. “I don’t know why it took this long to discover it.”

Since his revelation in summer 2025, he’s enjoyed visiting the beaches and hiking around the park, where he’s noticed that he can see a particular house when gazing out at the water.

“You look across the lake and are like, ‘Whoa, there’s something cool over there,’” he says.

The home doesn’t garishly stick out, he notes, but the architecture—the geometry of the deck forms, the embracing of the downslope gradient, the raw timberwork—does catch the eye. Since he designed the house and its expansive lake-facing windows, he may be a bit biased. But he’s also not wrong.

Upon entering the home, the view immediately reveals itself to the lake and Schallenberger Ridge beyond

Completed in 2024, the Donner Lake residence was built as a retirement oasis for a couple who owned a home down the street and up a bit from the water. They had seen another of Marsden’s lakefront projects and brought him on early in their negotiations to buy the property, which held a cabin they knew they wanted to tear down to start fresh. 

The parcel’s skinny east-west lie created an opportunity to design a home with as much lakefront area as possible. The significant downslope also meant elevation would be a feature, not a bug.

“When you are inside, it’s like you are on the water,” Marsden says. “You’re elevated. The deck creates lines of sight, so that no matter where you look, it’s water. It’s like being on a houseboat.”

The elevation also means the garage and main living spaces of the home—the dining room, kitchen, great room and primary suite, all accessible after entering via a timber-framed entry bridge—all sit at street level, creating a sort of inverted floor plan. The guest-focused spaces on the smaller lake level can be reached from a unique feature, especially for a 2,589-square-foot house: a two-sided elevator, also accessible from the entry bridge. This means visitors with mobility needs can arrive and go straight to their own quarters, keeping the owners’ spaces as private as desired. 

The front facade offers a well-scaled, understated presence as viewed from Donner Pass Road

Those primary living spaces are all about inviting the occupants to enjoy Donner Lake. After crossing the entry bridge in the development-code-mandated setback zone, anyone passing the threshold enters the home through a pivot door. Marsden had originally envisioned and designed the space beyond the foyer to serve as a dining room, with the living room beyond, closer to the lake. When the clients moved their furniture in, however, they set up their dining table closer to the water.

“It never would have crossed my mind to do that, but it feels so thoughtful and natural,” Marsden says, noting that the wife went to design school and has a “next-level understanding” of what works.

An entry bridge featuring exposed timber and steel spans from street level to the front door

To the left of the foyer is the garage, a small but efficient mudroom with built-in lockers and closets, and a powder room with a vanity made from a repurposed interior door that was delivered in the wrong size. Straight ahead is the great room/dining/kitchen area. Plank shelves transition into the mantle of a “stealth” fireplace that doesn’t shout for attention. The asymmetrical look of the walnut-paneled room allows guests to decide where to focus—with the water winning out most times, though the treasure-showcasing cubbies, sapele cabinets, Neolith countertops and white oak floors are gaze-worthy. 

A corner opening door allows the deck to serve as an extension of the kitchen and living area, “making it feel twice as big,” Marsden says, adding that it’s one of his favorite layouts of recent memory.

Marsden and his team, which included project manager Kenzie Tillitt and project planner Emily McGuire, designed the windows to let in the “glorious morning sun” from the east, but shaded the patio to avoid blazing glare later in the day.

“Western sun in Tahoe in summer can really sizzle,” Marsden says.

He also took another natural element—prevailing winds—into account by creating a leeward gathering space where everyone can enjoy the open air without getting blasted. A firepit off the outdoor dining zone is guarded by windbreak glass railing on two sides, though the barriers turn to cable rail elsewhere for a more open look and feel. The shapes of the decks themselves mirror the contour of the waterline, closely following setback rules while simultaneously orienting stunning views and creating visually interesting geometry.

From the main gathering space, a small vestibule leads to the primary suite with an efficient bedroom layout driven by the client.

Designed with the homeowners’ vision and input in mind, the fireplace wall in the living room contains a small wet bar and cubbies above that showcase family mementos

“She wanted a cozy reading nook in her bedroom, with views of the lake,” Marsden says, explaining that the resulting view to the south encompasses not just the water and trees, but the railroad tracks on the ridge. “She jokes that’s where her aging-in-place bed will be someday: ‘When I grow old, that’s going to be where my nurse brings me my breakfast.’”

A small “step-out” deck holds two chairs for time outdoors, but even the primary bath was designed with views in mind. The double vanity offers big views of the lake through the shower, all lit by sun pouring in through a high window. 

Down a compact stair consisting of numerous steps that had to both meet code and land at a certain point—“definitely a little puzzle we had to work through in design and construction to be sure it all worked out just right,” Marsden says—is a lower-level lounge space with a small seating area and wet bar with a fridge and sink. Two bedrooms with en-suite baths flank the space, and an outdoor living room sits under the deck, creating a summer hangout zone in deep cover. A cozy little en-suite bunk room is tucked under the garage, giving this compact house four bedrooms.

The kitchen, which orients to the lake, features grain-matched sapele cabinets handcrafted by Mark Aramaki of Ki Woodworks and custom glass light fixtures created by the owner’s close friend

Custom home builder Pavlo Gesmundo, president of Mountain Life Construction, says the walkout basement was one of the biggest challenges of the build. Since the home’s envelope was restrictive, and they had to dig a hole to accommodate everything the lowest level required, there wasn’t a significant amount of room for all the necessary equipment.

“We ended up getting creative with cranes and materials,” Gesmundo says with a chuckle.

That creativity paid off, as they were able to bring in everything they needed and perform the excavation. Unfortunately, since permits were finalized in late fall, the snowy months represented a hard deadline—especially since the 2022-23 season was among the most prodigious in Tahoe history.

“That was the year,” Gesmundo says, adding with emphasis: “The year—with record snowfall.”

A window bed nook in the primary bedroom offers the perfect spot to curl up with a book

The owners agreed with him that they should shut down for the winter, then dig it out and resume in the spring. Once the house was well underway, the Erector Set of the steel—as Gesmundo describes it—made a striking image. In particular, he was drawn to the structure that was created to cantilever the deck over the water. This was a design process necessity, born of high-water-mark restrictions that deny foundational structures but permit overhang. When one support was found to be encroaching too far out in the design phase, the engineers with Linchpin Structural Engineering helped create something like a “knee brace,” says Gesmundo, who describes the lower level as a beautifully asymmetrical design element.

“They definitely made lemonade with that setback requirement,” he says. 

The eye is drawn to the large window of the primary shower, offering views of the mountains and sky beyond, while high windows above the vanity provide additional natural light

Considering the rugged nature of alpine lake life, Gesmundo also notes that he appreciates the materials selected for their ability to withstand the elements and to weather well over time. He explains that the lot is south-facing—and “homes on that side of the lake get hammered. Wind comes out of the west. … The rain and snow and sleet all come in and hammer these buildings. Electing not to use wood on the exterior is a design aspect I appreciate.”

Visitors who make the easy lower-level transition from indoors to outdoors can turn and see that low-maintenance exterior: a mixed blend stone veneer, corten steel that naturally patinas over time, corrugated metal and exposed glulam structure with mixed-grain structural hemlock ceiling.

“Everything is meant to embrace the true nature of the material it is,” Marsden says. “Let the wood be wood, the metal be metal, the stone be stone.”

By all accounts, the owners are enjoying their home, which—with its sumptuous views, lake-hugging contours and direct access to the water—lets Donner be Donner.

Award: Donner Hideaway

Building Design: Marsden Architects

Builder: Mountain Life Construction

Interior Design: Marsden Architects; Mountain Life Construction; homeowner

Landscape Design: NA

Square Feet: 2,589