Thunderbird Lodge

The Thunderbird Lodge, also known as the Whittell Estate, is a historic 6.51acre waterfront estate located on the east shore of Lake Tahoe, in western Washoe County, Nevada. It is now within Lake Tahoe – Nevada State Park.HistoryGeorge Whittell Jr. was born in San Francisco in 1881, an heir to one of San Francisco's wealthiest families. His father was the founder of PG&E, the Northern California utility corporation, along with many other businesses. Upon his father’s death in 1922, he received an inheritance of $29 million, which he invested in the stock market. It had grown to $50 million ($60 Billion in 2015 dollars) when he liquidated all his stock holdings just weeks prior to the 1929 Stock Market Crash, becoming one of California’s richest people then at age 49. Captain Whittell, as he liked to be called, is quoted as saying: "When men stop boozing, womanizing and gambling, the bloom is off the rose." By establishing a residence in Nevada, Whittell avoided the higher income taxes in California, where he spent the bulk of each year at his 50-acre Woodside, California estate, the present day site of Kings Mountain Vineyard.In 1935, Captain George Whittell Jr. purchased the 27 miles of Lake Tahoe shoreline and nearly 40,000 acres from Norman Biltz. It encompassed essentially 95% of the Nevada shoreline of Lake Tahoe — all of the land from Crystal Bay, Incline Village, Sand Harbor, Glenbrook, Cave Rock, and Zephyr Cove to Round Hill. Whittell paid approximately $2.7 million or $81.00 per acre. Between 1935 and 1969, Captain George Whittell continued to amass a vast majority of the acreage in Washoe, Carson, and Douglas Counties on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe.