Elegant in its simplicity, this vacation residence in Olympic Valley wows as it welcomes multiple generations to family celebrations

A large window provides a unique view between the home’s two building volumes and into the forest beyond

Some Tahoe houses seem more akin to museums than homes, in that they’re filled with art but light on that lived-in feel. Others, however—such as this Olympic Valley home—reflect a more people-oriented purpose: bringing loved ones together for fun, fellowship and family time. 

“My cousin’s son got married and we co-hosted the rehearsal dinner there, along with my cousin Chris next door. My dad turned 80 and we had a celebration there. And my oldest son takes 10 of his friends up there for his birthday every year,” Libby Wickland (née Frantz) says of her family’s second home, located a short drive from Palisades Tahoe resort. 

This is multi-generational use by design, packing five bedrooms into a familiar alpine shape for enjoying milestones and more against the backdrop of Washeshu Creek.

“We’ve got blow-up beds, too,” Wickland says. “We can sleep a lot of people!” 

Wickland’s dad grew up in Nevada City and spent much of his youth speeding down the slopes with his brother, who eventually became a downhill ski racer. He attended the 1960 Olympics with his parents, and his brother (Uncle Bob) bought a house in Olympic Valley in the early 1970s. Their love of that alluring mixture of powder and gravity continued to the next generation, with Wickland and her siblings enjoying the sport as well. Though they are spread out now, from the Sacramento area to Newport Beach to Houston, all three of them lived in Tahoe at one point after college. It’s clear where their hearts lie.

When a long-empty neighboring property became available in the late 2010s, Wickland’s cousin called to let her know.

“Dad’s like, ‘We should buy it,’” Wickland remembers, adding that they sat with the property for a couple of years while wondering what to build and how. Eventually, the patriarch reminded everyone that the latest generation of kids was getting older, so Wickland began seeking an architect in earnest. Her search led to Gordon Magnin, owner of Magnin Architecture. 

Designed for utilitarian use and straightforward functionality, the interior features an open-concept layout ideal for family gatherings

Magnin’s design was driven by multiple factors, he says, including the way the property slopes down toward the creek, the client’s desired use as a seasonal home that could accommodate a growing family, and the opportunity he had to distribute the project’s program and lay out the house in a way that drew on historic forms under steeply pitched roofs.

He started the design as a large one-story volume with an attic and ended up converting part of the attic to a bunk room over the garage at the client’s request to “add more space for kids.” The four other bedrooms have en-suite baths to allow families their privacy, while the sleeping area is separated from the “entertaining, loud, party zone of the house” by the entry in the middle.

To fit Tahoe’s architectural vernacular, Magnin kept the overall forms and outside materials simple. There’s a metal roof and wood siding in a restrained palette, but detailing adds a subtle touch that Magnin feels brings the “cool” factor. Thin eaves on the gables create a thin roof edge that required close work with a structural engineer. Window placement is all about functionality, but steel window boxes on gables articulate the portals that let light into the home.

“You wouldn’t really notice it unless I pointed it out,” Magnin says.

With steeply pitched gabled roofs and wood siding, the home blends into its Olympic Valley neighborhood while subtly standing out with modern detailing

Other touches reflect a more modern take on the infrastructure behind the traditional design, including hydronic heat and overhangs for passive solar shading.

Once inside, family and friends are treated to a dramatic spatial experience via a floor-to-ceiling window that looks between the two building volumes, pointing into the trees beyond and toward the creek below. A right-hand turn leads to the bedrooms and their attendant bathrooms; a left leads to a powder room, followed by the kitchen, dining room and focal living space. A terrace off the great room boasts a barbecue and boulder steps down to the burbling water.

“I love to work on generational homes that have meaning to the families building them,” Magnin says. 

Wickland’s sister-in-law handled the interior design, bringing in a dining room table and a big sectional sofa that faces the direct-vent gas fireplace and recessed TV, both set into a gently sloping wall. Fir boards reveal a painted back between their gaps, giving what Magnin calls “a woodsy design element, but done in a contemporary way.”

The poured and polished concrete floor has a crack here and there, but that adds to the handmade-esque charm and patina as opposed to a perfect machine finish, Magnin says. He notes: “I always tell clients there are two kinds of concrete floors—the kind that has cracked and the kind that will crack.” 

Gabe Shacter, owner of Mountain Craft, echoes that truth about concrete, as well as his appreciation for working with Wickland and the extended Frantz generations as they created something both functional and feature-worthy. 

That clear fir on the fireplace wall, for example, “can absorb abuse and still look really, really rich and healthy and give a lot of character to the house, even after years of use by kids and toys being thrown or whatever they do in there,” Shacter says. “It’s built to withstand multigenerational use.”

Ultimately, he says that the excitement of the Wicklands and the rest of the family really fed his and Magnin’s fires as the builder and designer, working its way through project manager Jake Resnikoff and the entire crew.

“It was pretty fun being involved on a family level,” Shacter says. “I’m not used to that. People describe their 9,000-square-foot home as their Tahoe cabin, but I think this is truly today’s Tahoe cabin for a family.”

A direct-vent gas fireplace and recessed TV are set into a gently sloping wall clad with clear fir

The love among the various team members who made this house happen is both apparent and mutual. Wickland says Magnin “was the best person I have ever worked with” and appreciates the way he made her vision come alive.

“He took everything very much to heart,” she says. “He designed us just the most amazing house.”

But is a house amazing for its design, or for the people who fill it with life year after year, their laughter echoing off the concrete and glass and into the memories of children who will someday grow and leave and return in their own time?

It must be a little of both—and to be sure, this house was designed and built with that duality in mind.

“I didn’t want to have to worry about anything,” Wickland says. “I have been in those other houses—‘Oh, don’t sit there!’ There’s going to be burgers on the couch. There’s going to be spills. There’s dogs. With 14 to 15 of us at a time, it’s going to get a little beat up.

“Maybe later we’ll have really nice furniture,” she muses, “but I doubt it.”

Award: Alpine Fresh

Building Design: Magnin Architecture

Builder: Mountain Craft

Interior Design: Magnin Architecture; Caroline Frantz

Landscape Design: NA

Square Feet: 4,300