Old Postcard Wednesday--Tahoe Tavern, Lake Tahoe

Please visit Owen's blog to read his contemplative poem in a post titled Haiti Shaken . . .  It includes amazing B&W photos of his trip there in 1997.

The internationally famous Tahoe Tavern was built in 1901. The Tahoe Tavern was designed by Walter Danforth Bliss for the Duane Bliss family. Walter Bliss was also the architect for the Ehrman Mansion; this explains why the two structures are similar in appearance.

In 1906 a 60 room annex south of the main hotel was built. A second floor was added in 1907 that included a casino with bowling alley, novelty and barbershops, and a ballroom with stage.
Other construction projects in 1907 made the Tavern an almost self-sustaining entity with a physician's office, a laundry, a steam plant and a water system, which brought piped water from above Tahoe City.

In 1925, a $250,000 "luxurious, elegant" new wing was added. The casino also added the bar the same year and in 1926, the coffee shop, sundeck and pleasure pier with rocked-in boat wells were built. With the advent of automobiles, it was necessary to add garages, which were constructed in 1927, along with tennis courts and a livery stable.

One could, upon arriving in Truckee on the mainline railroad, transfer to the narrow gauge line and travel to the Tavern in Tahoe City for $1.50. You would ride the passenger car, which was behind the ever-present freight cars. After dropping its passengers at the Tavern station, the train would go out on the long Tavern pier to meet the Steamer "Tahoe", which made the daily mail run around the lake in eight hours. . .

The Tahoe Tavern burned down in the 1960s. After the fire the structure was torn down. The Moana Development Corporation then purchased the property and constructed the present condominiums in three phases between 1966 and 1969.

Today the pool and rock stairway on the middle meadow stand as a reminder of the original historic Tahoe Tavern.

 ~The History of Tahoe Tavern from Tahoe Tavern Properties website
(home page at website has slide show of current properties and stunning lake views)

The postcard was sent by my mother to her mom after having spent a day off work at a friend's "Tahoe home 'midst the pines & how we enjoyed it." It was 1955, and she was twice divorced and working in Reno as a blackjack dealer six days a week. Her one day off was given over to us and play, frequently at Tahoe or at various hot springs pools around the area.

She signed my sister's name and my name to the greeting because we were not writing yet, and, in fact, I was too young to remember that particular day in the sun midst the pines. But I remember the Tahoe Tavern from many other day trips and family vacations as the years went by.

And I remember the look in my mother's eyes each time we would pass by the old place, and then she and I would exchange glances in an understanding moment that assured her...yes, I well knew that she and my father worked at the Tahoe Tavern and had separate employee quarters there when their love was young and passionate and carefree, before I came along, before my father's alcoholism destroyed all of it. Sometimes, in that moment of memory for her -- that had become a transferred story to me -- her excitement for what once was could be felt in the car as an energy force all its own and it was in those times that I knew she would later that night create a private moment with me so she could retell. Relive. Relive the memories of him coming to her desk in the management office to suggest that they take blankets to the sand and be together on warm summer nights, waking in morning's light with the slapping of small waves on shore and running back to the area in Tahoe Tavern where breakfast was served to employees before the new day's work began.

I never had a love quite as insane with intensity as theirs was.
Such a pity.......such a blessing.

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