Thunderbird Lodge and Captain George Whittell: The Eccentric Heir Who Kept Tahoe's East Shore Wild

On the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, a few miles south of Incline Village, a stone lodge sits on a rocky point so thoroughly screened by pines and granite that most boaters pass it without a second glance. The Thunderbird Lodge was built between 1936 and 1939 for Captain George Whittell Jr., a San Francisco-born heir who ended up owning a staggering share of the lake's east shore and, for reasons of temperament as much as policy, declined to build on it. Its granite tunnel, its card house, and its mahogany speedboat have made it one of the most talked-about private estates in the Sierra.

The story has a Nevada through-line that we find irresistible: a fortune made in Gold Rush San Francisco, a canny exit from the stock market months before the crash of 1929, and a Reno architect, Frederic DeLongchamps, who gave the whole thing its shape. We have tried to tell it carefully. The sources for Whittell's life, which include the National Register nomination, the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society, and regional magazines and newspapers, disagree on a surprising number of figures, so where they do we say "accounts differ" rather than pick a favorite.

The Captain and the Fortune

George Whittell Jr. was born in San Francisco to George and Anna Whittell. The Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society gives his birthdate as September 28, 1881; the National Register nomination for the estate says 1882, and accounts differ. He had a twin brother, Nicholas, who died in early childhood (sources say at age three or four), which left George the sole heir to two prosperous San Francisco families.

The National Register nomination traces both lines to 1849. His paternal grandfather, Hugh Whittell, a physician, arrived in Gold Rush San Francisco and established the family's real estate holdings. His maternal grandfather, Nicholas Luning, came from Germany the same year and made his money in banking and real estate. George Sr. managed commercial and residential property across the city, along with banking and railroad interests. In other words, this was not a mining fortune in the Comstock sense: the family made its money selling, renting, and lending against a city that was growing at tremendous speed. (For the Nevada silver that was financing so much of that growth, see our earlier piece on Virginia City and the Comstock Lode.) Some popular retellings credit the family with a founding role in the utilities that became Pacific Gas & Electric; we could not confirm that in the primary documents, so we leave it as a rumor.

Whittell came into the bulk of the money in the early 1920s. The Preservation Society puts his inheritance at about $30 million in 1922, while other accounts say roughly $29 million in 1921. By the standards of the day it was a very large sum, and he was a famously unconventional steward of it: he drifted through several colleges without graduating, and he married and divorced more than once before wedding Elia Pascal in 1919, with whom he had no children and, by most accounts, lived apart.

The story every account repeats is the one about 1929. Whittell is said to have sold roughly $50 million in stocks and bonds weeks or months before the October crash, a move that preserved the family's fortune while others were wiped out. Tahoe Quarterly and the Nevada State Parks history both give the figure; other accounts add that he afterward moved his residence to Nevada to avoid California's new state income tax. Whether he read the market or, as one telling has it, simply had good information, nobody really knows. We note the number as it is reported, as a figure that has hardened into legend, rather than as an audited one.

Buying the East Shore

With cash in hand in the depths of the Depression, Whittell bought land, and a great deal of it. Nevada State Parks says he "purchased most of the east side of Lake Tahoe" in the early 1930s, including Sand Harbor, which he bought from a Hobart family member (the park history names Hobart Jr.) and where he reportedly planned a casino. A regional account notes that many of his sellers were the families who owned lakeside sawmills that had prospered supplying timber to the Comstock mines, and who were glad to sell in hard times.

The scale of the purchase is where the sources part company. Most accounts say roughly 40,000 acres; Tahoe Quarterly and the Preservation Society magazine say about 45,000; the National Register nomination describes a purchase of approximately 30,000 acres in December 1937; and the Society for Architectural Historians entry says more than 35,000. Shoreline figures range even more widely, from about 18 miles to 20-plus, to the 27 or 29 miles repeated in popular tellings. Prices are reported as roughly $6 an acre for lakefront and $3 an acre for back country, though one account puts a single 1934 purchase at $2.7 million, or about $68 an acre. We would treat all of these as approximate, and the point stands either way: for a few years, one man owned most of Nevada's shore of the lake.

Whittell at first meant to profit from it, with talk of lakeside lots, a ski resort, and a hotel-casino. The Nevada Historical Society sums up the change of heart plainly: as he aged, his interest in animals, nature, and privacy outran his appetite for more money, and he held on to most of the land until he died.

Building the Thunderbird Lodge

For the design, Whittell went to Reno. Frederic J. DeLongchamps, Nevada's state architect and the designer of many of the state's best-known public buildings, drew preliminary plans in 1936, and the National Register nomination records final designs by October of that year. Construction began in 1936. The Preservation Society dates completion to 1939; the nomination places the major buildings in 1938 at a cost of about $300,000; and a few accounts run later, so the exact finish line depends on whom you ask. (We have written before about two DeLongchamps landmarks in Reno itself, the Riverside Hotel and the old Main Post Office. The lodge is the same hand in a very different register.)

What he drew was not a Reno civic building but a rustic stone compound: steep, shingled, bell-shaped rooflines, tall chimneys with hand-wrought ironwork, and terraces and paths that step down to a small cove. The Society for Architectural Historians credits Paiute and Washoe stonemasons trained at the Stewart Indian School in Carson City with much of the granite work. The main residence is famously modest in its guest accommodations: by the Preservation Society's account it holds two master bedrooms, a great room with a movie screen, and three small bedrooms for servants. Around it, the estate grew to include a Card House (the poker room), a caretaker's cottage, a cook's and butler's house, an "Admiral's House," a gatehouse, an elephant barn, and a boathouse. The Society describes that boathouse, about 28 by 100 feet, as the first steel structure at Lake Tahoe.

Most famous of all is the tunnel. A roughly 600-foot passage through solid granite connects the main house to the boathouse, which let Whittell reach his boat, and avoid his neighbors, without ever crossing open ground. Regional accounts add a few touches that suit a man who guarded his privacy: surveillance cameras and a two-way mirror at the entrance.

And then there is the boat. The mahogany speedboat Thunderbird was designed by the naval architect John L. Hacker of Detroit, and the National Register nomination records its launch on July 14, 1940, at a cost of roughly $87,500 (other accounts say $87,000). Lengths are given as 55 or 56 feet. It was built for speed, with twin V-12 engines, and it was sold to the casino owner Bill Harrah in 1962 before eventually returning to the lodge's boathouse.

The Eccentric and His Menagerie

Whittell's reputation rests as much on his habits as on his property. The best-known member of his menagerie was a pet lion named Bill, who, by the usual telling, came north to the lake each summer. Alongside Bill there was a baby elephant named Mingo, later described as weighing some two tons and housed in a purpose-built elephant barn at the lodge, and a tame cheetah. One account also mentions a polar bear for a single season. Sources disagree on how freely any of these animals roamed, and the stories have clearly been polished by decades of retelling, so we offer them as local legend with a documentary core: the lodge's own site lists the elephant barn among its buildings.

The human company was equally colorful. Accounts describe all-night poker games in the Card House with guests such as the baseball star Ty Cobb and Bill Harrah, and a host who valued his solitude so much that he built a tunnel to protect it. Whittell kept a lifelong enthusiasm for wild animals and the outdoors, which is probably the best explanation for why the shoreline survived him.

What Remains: The Lodge Today

The public part of the story begins in the late 1950s. Nevada opened negotiations to acquire Tahoe frontage, and in 1958 Whittell reluctantly agreed to lease part of the Sand Harbor beach to the state. Nevada State Parks reports that judicial action later forced him to sell some 5,300 acres, which became the foundation of Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park. One account adds a 1959 sale of about 10,000 acres to a developer, land that became part of the Crystal Bay and Incline Village area. Whittell died on April 18, 1969, at the age of 87.

After his death, the lodge and roughly 10,000 remaining acres were bought by the Wall Street investor Jack Dreyfus, and most of that land eventually passed to the U.S. Forest Service. In 1998 the Del Webb Corporation purchased the estate and about 140 acres for $56 million, according to the Preservation Society; the nonprofit Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society took over the buildings the following year and, after settling the debt, held clear title in 2009. The Whittell Estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 (reference 00001207).

Today the nonprofit offers guided tours of the lodge by reservation. As of this writing the Society lists public tours Tuesday through Saturday from May through October, with private and group tours year-round; check thunderbirdtahoe.org for current schedules and access. This is a managed historic site, not a place to drop in on.

At a Glance: Captain George Whittell and the Thunderbird Lodge

• George Whittell Jr. was born in San Francisco in 1881 or 1882 (sources differ) to a family whose wealth came from Gold Rush-era real estate and banking.
• He inherited roughly $29 to $30 million in the early 1920s and is reported to have sold about $50 million in stock shortly before the 1929 crash.
• In the early-to-mid 1930s he assembled tens of thousands of acres of Lake Tahoe's Nevada east shore; figures range from about 30,000 to 45,000 acres and from roughly 18 to 29 miles of shoreline.
• Reno architect Frederic J. DeLongchamps designed the Thunderbird Lodge, begun in 1936 and completed around 1938 or 1939, with a 600-foot granite tunnel to the boathouse.
• His menagerie reportedly included a lion named Bill, an elephant named Mingo, and a cheetah.
• Nevada acquired Sand Harbor-area land beginning in the late 1950s; Whittell died on April 18, 1969, and Jack Dreyfus bought the lodge and remaining land.
• The lodge is on the National Register of Historic Places (2000) and is operated by the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who built the Thunderbird Lodge?

George Whittell Jr., a San Francisco-born heir known as "the Captain," had it built between 1936 and about 1939. The architect was Frederic J. DeLongchamps of Reno, who also designed the Riverside Hotel and the old Main Post Office.

Where did the Whittell fortune come from?

From Gold Rush-era San Francisco. According to the National Register nomination, his paternal grandfather, Hugh Whittell, built the family's real estate holdings, and his maternal grandfather, Nicholas Luning, made his money in banking and real estate. His father added banking and railroad interests.

Did Whittell really sell his stocks before the 1929 crash?

That is the consistent story: about $50 million in stock sold weeks or months before the crash. The number comes from magazine and park-history accounts rather than financial records, so we treat it as approximate, and we have not found a primary document that confirms the exact amount or date.

Can you visit the Thunderbird Lodge?

Yes, by reservation. The Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society runs guided tours, which have been offered Tuesday through Saturday from May through October. Check the Society's website for current schedules, since details change from season to season.

Conclusion

It is tempting to treat Whittell as a punchline, with the lion, the elephant, and the two-way mirror, and the stories are good ones. But the more durable part of the record is the quiet one: a man with enormous means and a strong dislike of crowds held on to a long stretch of one of America's most beautiful shorelines, long enough for the public to get hold of it. His motives were mostly private, and the result was public. The Tahoe Quarterly, with some justice, called him the accidental conservationist.

We are always talking about Nevada's history at The Eclection, and you can meet us in person at the Reno Antique Faire. To bring a piece of the old Sierra home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society — history, tours, and preservation of the Whittell Estate.
• Online Nevada Encyclopedia — articles on Nevada history, people, and places, including George Whittell Jr.
• Nevada Historical Society — the state museum and research library for Nevada history.

Hero photograph: the Thunderbird Lodge on Lake Tahoe's Nevada shore, photographed by Ronda Kingsford, 2009, from the U.S. National Archives (Federal Highway Administration, National Scenic Byways collection). Public domain.