In most mountain environments, it is an unspoken rule that second homes should blend seamlessly into the landscape, using local stone, rough-hewn timbers and native plants to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb. But at Lahontan, Lake Tahoe's newest and most upscale resort community, the concept is more than a suggestion. It's a strictly enforced requirement that is backed by a 160-page "design book" and a board of reviewers that can be tougher than any government planning agency.
At first, this sounds like an Orwellian nightmare for owners and architects-a bureaucratic straitjacket that stifles freedom of expression and creativity. And more than a few newcomers to this 860-acre development near Northstar-at-Tahoe find themselves at the boiling point after being forced to scrap the third version of their blueprints. Among the long list of no-no's at Lahontan: front-facing garages, flat rooflines, conspicuous skylights, vinyl windows, non-native plants and bold exterior colors. It is almost a capital offense to remove any existing tree that is larger than 4 inches in diameter without getting approval from the design police. And contractors are shaking their heads about a fiat that requires them to re-cover any graded or disturbed soil with pine needles and cones.
And yet, Lahontan has not only managed to thrive-virtually all 509 homesites have been sold at prices ranging from $150,000 to more than $1 million-but it has become an incubator for a new style of alpine architecture that is attracting national and international attention. Leading the charge are two Truckee architects, Greg Faulkner and Scott Ryan, who wrote the fat book of guidelines for the project and designed several of its homes and common buildings. Both men strive to have their work embody a sense of honesty, with no artificial timbers covering metal beams, and to reflect the spirit of the early 20th century Arts-and-Crafts movement led by innovators Bernard Maybeck and Frank Lloyd Wright. These new/old homes impart a rustic look, but in a contemporary way, and they make liberal use of unconventional building materials.
"Our vision was to make the environment, not the buildings, the primary focus of the community," says Keith Franke, Lahontan's design review administrator. "We've used historical precedents to provide a continuous reference, but we certainly encourage fresh perspectives and cutting-edge designs," he says. "We're not looking for cutesy, cottage-style mountain homes of the Twenties and Thirties, nor are we looking for the kind of river-rock-and-log accents that have been so overdone lately."
Faulkner and Ryan, who were partners when Lahontan opened in 1997 but now maintain separate practices, say they strive for that most elusive quality-timelessness. "The worst thing that could happen would be for someone 10 or 15 years from now to see these homes and say, 'Oh, that's such a Nineties look,'" Ryan says. He grimaces at granite countertops, cherrywood cabinets, stone wainscotting, wall-to-wall carpeting, polished marble, Mica lamps and fixtures, and just about anything else that you might see at Home Depot, Pottery Barn or Restoration Hardware. In short, cliches be damned.
So what replaces them? The new wave of thinking includes these concepts:
At Lahontan, selling clients on what may seem to be radical concepts is often more challenging than selling the review board. "It's an educational process to have them accept a low-profile and understated design," says Kurt Reinkens, another Truckee architect who has designed some 40 homes at Lahontan. Property owners, who range from captains of industry to sports figures, are not exactly known for understated personalities or modest net worth. "It's a stretch for some of them to put aside the 'Look at Me' philosophy, but ultimately most of them understand the aesthetic value of having their homes disappear into the fabric of the forest," he says. "We like to say that you don't build a house here; you surgically implant it."
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