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Top:
The Grays camping at the original building site. Bottom: Nelson
Eddy & Jeannette MacDonald in "Rose Marie," which
featured the popular tune "Indian Love Call."
The
renovation restored the Lodge from top to bottom, combining a
rustic spirit with luxurious details for a warm & relaxing
experience.
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By
Ronald MacLaren Patterson
Once
upon a time, circa 1935, a builder and dreamer named William Gray
built the "Log Lodge" as the focus of a proposed log
resort community in the West Shore of Lake Tahoe. In 1936, the
unfinished structure was used in the MGM film setting of "Rose
Marie," with Jeannette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy and James Stewart.
For the next forty years it stood unfinished and victim to the
elements, until a San Francisco contractor bought the lodge and
partially finished and restored it.
In
1986, I acquired the Log Lodge and completed the restoration from
outside to inside, finishing walls to separate bedrooms and creating
a log stairway to the second floor and a balcony overlooking the
main hall below. The restoration took about three years to fully
complete. The Kings Truss cathedral ceiling lodge is now furnished
in 1930s style, befitting an old Tahoe hunting lodge. A long rail
fence and palisade fence now surround the 2.5 acres of pine trees
and meadows.
 As
co-founder of the Renaissance Pleasure Faires and The Great Dickens
Christmas Fairs, I have always been fascinated with history and
bringing history to life for others. That is part of the joy my
work on the Log Lodge has brought to me.
The
flavor of history and spirit of celebration reside here at the
Log Lodge -- bring your family and friends and join the tradition!
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