Visiting Lake Tahoe

I was fortunate to visit Lake Tahoe this past week and it is truly one of the treasures of the United States. I arrived just as the sun was setting over the lake and it was a beautiful sight. Although my visit was fairly short, it was very memorable. I attended the Nevada Municipal League reception at the Thunderbird Lodge, which is a unique house on the lake with quite a history. It was owned by one of the developers of Lake Tahoe. The highlight of the house is a visit to the boat house. In order to get to the boat house, you walk down a tunnel that is over two hundred feet long. The boat is a wooden yacht that is over 55 feet long. It is beautiful and unlike anything I have ever seen. I found a little bit of history on the boat.

Here it is:

George Whittell had a life-long fascination with the latest technology of the day, particularly that which manifested itself in aircraft, automobiles and boats. Among the many he owned were a DC-2, outfitted for his private use, a Grumman Duck seaplane, six of the most uncommon Duesenberg motorcars, a 145' pleasure yacht and the legendary 55' speedboat, Thunderbird. The latter is certainly one of the most unique and elegant wooden vessels crafted in the Twentieth century and, like his Duesenbergs, is as much a work of art as a means of transportation.
Commissioned by Whittell specifically for Lake Tahoe while he was building his fabulous estate there, the Thunderbird was designed by famed naval architect John L. Hacker and built by Huskin Boat Works in Detroit. Enamored of the lines of his DC-2 aircraft, also named Thunderbird, the eccentric millionaire requested that the hull and cockpit of his new speedboat resemble the fuselage of his personal airplane. Fashioned of triple-planked mahogany and brushed stainless steel the new acquisition would enable Whittell to get about Lake Tahoe with unmatched speed and style. Outfitted originally with twin 550 hp Kermath engines, the vessel was capable of 60 knots. To accommodate the Thunderbird its notoriously reclusive owner ordered the construction of a 100-foot long enclosed boathouse with 600-foot tunnel that would connect it to the main residence, both blasted out of solid granite.
Completed at a cost of $87,000 (over $3.3 million in today's dollars), Whittell took delivery of the Thunderbird in 1940, and it first crossed the mountain lake's sparkling blue waters on July 14th of that year. The aging playboy used it extensively that summer and the next, retrieving friends from nearby communities and showgirls from the Cal-Neva casino for lavish parties at his estate. Following the entry of the U.S. into World War II, however, Whittell became afraid that his beloved yacht or its engines might be conscripted into military service, and he hid it away in Lodge's boathouse. Until the war's end the Thunderbird never saw the light of day and was used only occasionally at night.
As Whittell entered his seventies he became even more reclusive and was rarely seen by anyone in the Tahoe area. The yacht was also seen so infrequently that it seemed to some who caught a glimpse nothing more than an apparition.
After Whittell broke his leg late in life and refused surgery to repair the fracture, he ended up confined to a wheelchair and unable or unwilling to use the Thunderbird. Suspended by slings in the boathouse for most of the last 10 years of his life, the boat was rescued by casino magnate (and Whittell protégé) William F. Harrah, who purchased it from Whittell shortly before his death in 1969. Harrah had it transported to his Automobile Collection restoration shop in Reno where it was reverentially refurbished. His workmen added a matching, brushed stainless steel flying bridge and replaced the original Kermath engines with two V-12 Allison aircraft engines, each developing 1200 horsepower. Harrah used it as his private yacht for the entertainment of his casino high-rollers and showroom headliners, such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra and Bill Cosby, to name a few. The boat was returned to Reno every winter where the mahogany hull was meticulously sanded down to bare wood and refinished with ten coats of varnish!
Following Harrah's death in 1978, present owner Joan Gibb purchased the Thunderbird and now makes it available for charter on Lake Tahoe. The yacht is berthed in its original boathouse at the Thunderbird Lodge and can be viewed during tours of the estate.