Jill's Journal: The most famous and most photographed spot on Lake Tahoe is undoubtedly Emerald Bay with its deep green-blue water and the lake’s only island. From the vista point overlooking the beautiful spot, we hiked the one mile down to Emerald Bay’s shores and its one-of-a-kind mansion, Vikingsholm.
In 1929, one woman, the extremely wealthy widow and divorcee Ms. Lora Knight (who helped finance Charles Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic), owned a hefty portion of Emerald Bay. She built a 38-room, ninth-century-inspired Norse fortress-like mansion she named Vikingsholm. The summer home has stunning views of Emerald Bay, including of the little teahouse she built atop Fannette Island. She and her guests occasionally took their afternoon tea in the stone structure.
The tour of Vikingsholm is not long or extensive, but it is so interesting to see “old-style” Tahoe from when the area was a summer playground for the extremely wealthy. Over 90% of the furnishings are original to the home and it truly gives one a glimpse into the “gracious living” of a bygone time.
The girls were so cute on the hike back up to the road, ruthlessly comparing this hike to both the Oregon Trail and the Crater Lake hikes (and still declaring unanimously that the Oregon Trail hike was the most awful thing we’ve ever put them through!). We passed a woman going down who was clearly an avid hiker. Madelyn saw her coming and said, “I need to warn her.” I questioned what she wanted to warn her about, but she was too intent on getting the woman’s attention to answer. She boldly stopped the woman and said, “I need to warn you it’s a very, very, VERY long hike back up.” The woman was clearly amused and so were we!
3 comments:
Madelyn, When Wendi was in Girl Scouts we took the girls to the Vikingsholm and granma pooped out on the hike back up and had to get a ride from a ranger to the parking lot. Tell Daddy to take you to the ermine mansion at Sugarpine. It is also a neat big house with great sloped lawns to roll down. Lots of fun and no long hike. Granma
Haha! Love that sweet Madelyn!! I have actually been there! And did the hike (& survived, though I agree with Madelyn...). Isn't that the place that had grass growing on the roof? And then they had goats on the roof to maintain it?
~Jennifer
Andee, contrary to what it probably sounds like, the girls actually love hikes (with the glaring exception of the Oregon Trail)! They bounced around on this one and had a ball looking for woolly worms and miniature waterfalls by the side of the road. Glad you've been to Vikingsholm -- isn't it neat?
Jennifer, yes, parts of the roof are sodded! But no goats these days -- how the kids would have loved that. So glad you've been there and can't wait to visit your neck of the woods!
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