Up the Hill from Dollar Point, Tahoe XC's Next Lodge Is a 1937 Lake House Waiting in Storage

In 2015, a historic home in Rubicon Bay changed hands. The new owner planned to build a modern house on the land, but he did not want the old one simply torn down. It had been built in 1937 for an upper-crust family, and he wanted it donated and rebuilt somewhere else in Tahoe. Moonshine Ink reported that he approached several organizations, Tahoe City Public Utility District among them. The district had no use for the house, but it thought of the Nordic center in the Highlands.

"They asked us if we were ready to take on a project of this nature, to save the structure and have it become a centerpiece of the community," Sue Irelan, a Tahoe XC board member and finance chair for the lodge project, told Moonshine Ink. "Our ski area and our nonprofit stepped up and said, 'yes, we are ready to take this on.'"

Eleven years later, that house is still Tahoe Cross Country's next lodge. It is also already built once. Its beams, paneling and floors sit catalogued in storage. What has changed is the ground they will go back up on.

A Clubhouse for a Golf Course That Never Opened

Tahoe XC started grooming Nordic trails in 1975. Today it maintains 50 kilometers of them, and with summer hiking, biking and trail running, more than 20,000 people a year use the trails, according to Moonshine Ink.

The base for all of it has been the Highlands Community Center since the start. That building was the clubhouse for a nine-hole golf course near Burton Creek that was started but never finished. An outside study first identified the need for a new lodge in the late 1990s.

The old clubhouse sits at the bottom of a slope, so every outing starts with a climb. Molly Casper, Tahoe XC's marketing and communications director, explained the issue to Moonshine Ink:

"The current lodge sits at the bottom of a hill, which presents issues. Especially for beginners and for lessons, it's tough having to start by going uphill. And being right next to the high school will also enhance the community in ways I don't think we even yet foresee."

That is the reason for the relocation. The new site on Polaris Road, next to North Tahoe High School, is on flatter ground, and trails will start right at the new lodge. Some parking will be shared with the school.

The Lodge Is Already Built, Once

Before the house could move, it had to come apart. Crews took it down and catalogued its interconnected historic materials: locally milled beams, hand-adzed wall paneling and redwood end-grain flooring. All of it went to a storage facility while fundraising got under way. Hand-adzed means the paneling was shaped with a special type of axe.

The finished lodge is planned at roughly 80 percent original material and 20 percent new, with an annex on the left wing for ski waxing and equipment storage. The design the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency approved in 2023 calls for a 10,365-square-foot lodge and a 70-space parking lot, six of those spaces with EV charging.

The project runs in three phases:

So far the house has also drawn more than $320,000 in in-kind contributions and nearly 3,000 hours of volunteer project-development work, according to the lodge project's blog.

What Changed on Polaris Road This Year

Phase 1 is the part neighbors can see. According to the project's June 1, 2026 update, crews from Stuart Gensburg and Sons came back to the Polaris Road site in mid-May. Their work list for summer and fall, weather permitting, included:

• Paving the new trailhead parking lot and driveway
• Finishing water and electrical service
• Installing six Level 2 EV charging stations
• Starting the project's green energy infrastructure, beginning with a solar canopy

The same update describes the solar canopy and chargers as the first step toward a net-zero energy lodge. Later phases add more solar generation and geothermal systems. It also told trail users that 2026 would look different from the grading and excavation of 2025, with drainage and paving taking up most of the summer and an all-volunteer restoration and revegetation effort as the season closed. The project lists (530) 686-7038 for neighbor questions about construction.

The lodge project's homepage now says Phase 1 "Nears Completion." Tahoe XC's most recent pass newsletter still directs visitors to park at the designated trailhead lot at 925 Country Club Drive, so skiers should check the Tahoe XC site before the first trip of the season. In October, the organization paired a lodge clean-up and trail work day with guided tours of the new community site, and construction notices go up on the project's news page.

Who Pays for the Grooming

How Tahoe XC is set up explains why the lodge counts as a community project and not only a ski-area upgrade. The ski operation is a public benefit corporation, and it subsidizes its sister organization, the nonprofit Tahoe Cross-Country Ski Education Association, which runs community programs. Every pass sold this winter helps fund that nonprofit.

The posted prices on the season-pass page for 2026–27:

Early-bird pricing ran until November 10. The adult pass comes out about even with the daily rate. A day ticket costs $49, so ten visits come to $490 at the window, or $440 with the adult 10-pack. The pass adds more than trail access. It includes two shareable day tickets, access to the Tahoe City Winter Sports Park, and two non-weekend, non-holiday tickets at Tahoe Donner. The Glide Pass covers on-site rentals but not trail access, and only 40 were offered. Dog day tickets are $15.

November on the Hill, Date by Date

The weeks before grooming starts are when the nonprofit side is busiest, and the dates below lead into the Winter Sports Park opening that the adult pass covers.

1. Saturday, November 14. The 27th Annual Cross-Country and Backcountry Ski Swap. Admission is $5, and the swap is a major fundraiser for TCCSEA youth programs. Volunteer sign-ups are on the Tahoe XC homepage.
2. Saturday, November 21. Registration opens for Nordic Naturalistic. Registration for Strider Gliders and the Intro to Devo program opened in October.
3. Saturday, November 28. The Tahoe City Winter Sports Park has its season opening, and the Tahoe City Downtown Association adds a community tree lighting, new for 2026. Santa will be there, along with performances by the Tahoe Lake Elementary School Choir and the Truckee Tahoe Community Chorus. Event details are listed as still to come. The same afternoon, Sierra Surf Club offers free gift wrapping from 2 to 7 p.m. for qualifying local purchases.
4. December. Gar Woods Grill & Pier in Carnelian Bay plans to reopen. Owner Tom Turner closed the restaurant on October 8 for two months to refurbish the floors and update old equipment, and the announcement promises "the same Gar Woods you've loved for 38 years," as the Sierra Sun reported.

Tahoe XC's published parking guidance still points to the clubhouse built for a golf course that never opened. The house that will replace it sits in a storage facility, its beams and redwood flooring catalogued for the Polaris Road site.

At Team Blair Tahoe, we follow projects like the Tahoe XC lodge because they shape everyday life on the North Shore long before anyone opens a door. If you own near Dollar Point or the Highlands and want to talk about how changes up the hill relate to your property, request a Private Market Valuation and we will start there.