An inside look at Lake Tahoe’s Thunderbird Lodge

by Kyle Ellison on

Immaculately constructed on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada’s Thunderbird Lodge is the infamous domicile of legendary California playboy and bon vivant, George Whittell Jr.

Inheriting a fortune in the 1920’s worth the modern day equivalent of $49 billion, the highly eccentric and endlessly fascinating Whittell vowed to never work a day in a life, a goal he eventually achieved until his death at the age of 87.

Having purchased over 100,000 acres along the eastern shore of the Sierra’s Lake Tahoe, during the height of the Great Depression Whittell commanded a legion of local workers to construct his “Castle in the Sky” that would eventually become the Thunderbird Lodge.

Camouflaged into the granite and aqua marine shoreline, highlights of the lodge range from fish tanks embedded in the walls to multiple secret passageways, the longest being a 600 ft. subterranean tunnel that connects the main lodge with the card house that was host to legendary high stakes poker games.

In addition to his lakeshore mansion, Whittell was perhaps most famous for his full throttle lifestyle that was rife with curiosities. An elite member of San Francisco high society during his youth, upon completion of school Whittell left the US to join the Barnum and Bailey Circus in Europe against the will of his parents.

During his time in the circus, Whittell developed a keen pension for exotic animals, a love which would one day lead to him operate a safari business in Africa and keep a pet lion named Bill with him at his California and Nevada estates. For a short period of time, Whittell even housed an elephant named Mingo at his Thunderbird Lodge, though the cold weather would prove to be detrimental to Mingo’s health.

Fluent in 7 languages, Whittell married a French nurse who tended to wounds he sustained while driving an ambulance in World War I. After the war, the couple eventually moved back to California and spent their summers at the Lake Tahoe Castle in the Sky, which thanks to the Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society is now open to the public for tours.

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The Official Re-Birth of the Barbary Coast. Sort of.

by David Farley on
Certain travel magazines and newspaper travel sections like to proclaim that cities and neighborhood’s have been re-born. I remember seeing an article in a travel magazine several years ago that claimed Stockholm had achieved this seemingly other-worldly status. Oh really? I thought. It seems such an enlightened incarnation of an entire city would have been more newsworthy.

Aside from travel writing’s sometimes proclivity for exaggeration, the once legendary and long disappeared Barbary Coast neighborhood has been re-born. Well, sort of. I’ve spent the month of August looking for remnants of it and until I met a man named William Sauro I had no idea that the neighborhood is officially back.


But, you’re probably thinking right now, I thought the Barbary Coast was long gone since 1917?

I met Mr. Sauro at the Old Ship Saloon, fittingly enough, since the bar – on Pacific and Battery Streets, right in the heart of the Barbary Coast – is constructed from an old ship that had brought miners from New York to get in on the potential riches of the Gold Rush. I wanted to ask him the same question about this supposed resurrection of the Barbary Coast.
Mr. Sauro, who is retired, told me he’s the president of the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association. Such associations, he said, have a lot of power in San Francisco. The infamous and longtime Telegraph Hill Dwellers are the most powerful neighborhood association in the city. And so, in 2005, some of the denizens of the area formerly known as the Barbary Coast decided to create their own association. “It’s mostly so we can have a say in land development and quality of life issues,” he told me as I sipped a glass of pisco punch. “Someone needs to represent the residents here and that’s what the neighborhood association does.”

But why, I asked, did they choose the name Barbary Coast? After all, it’s a bit ironic that a bunch of well-off city dwellers would take a name known for crime and poverty (adding an extra dose of the irony is that the San Francisco Board of Realtors endorsed the name change).


“The Financial District Neighborhood Association just doesn’t sound very cool,” Sauro said. I agreed.

Sauro did make an interesting connection between the current neighborhood and the legendary one, noting the expensive restaurants that have popped up along the nearby Embarcadero. “They’re great restaurants,” Sauro said. “But so expensive that people in the neighborhood are still being shanghaied–just in a totally different way.”

And so, as such, the Barbary Coast is re-born. That sounds newsworthy to me.

Queen Hatshepsut and the case of the poison skin cream

by Sean McLachlan on

German archaeologists studying a skin cream once owned by Queen Hatshepsut have found evidence that the female pharaoh may have accidentally poisoned herself.

The tiny bottle, which has an inscription saying it was owned by Hatshepsut, was still partially filled with a substance that the archaeologists subjected to chemical analysis. It included nutmeg and palm oils, commonly used to soothe skin irritations. It also included benzopyrene, which smells nice but is highly carcinogenic. It’s found in burnt substances such as pitch, coal tar, cigarette smoke, and burnt foods such as barbeque and coffee. Keep that in mind this Labor Day Weekend.

In contrast to the idealized statue of Hatshepsut shown here, her mummy revealed that she was obese, had liver cancer, and probably suffered from diabetes.

Hatshepsut’s rule saw two decades of peace and ambitious trade expeditions as far as Puntland, which was probably in the modern unrecognized state of the same name. Her modern-looking temple at Deir el Bahri is one of Egypt´s most stunning attractions. You can reach it by bus, or if you’re feeling adventurous you can take a mountain path from the Valley of the Kings, which leads you to a cliff overlooking the temple before sloping down past the tombs of its builders and to the temple itself. I did this one August, which is not the best time. That was probably as bad for my skin as Hatshepsut’s skin cream.

[Photo courtesy Rob Koopman]

Roman shipwreck found off Albanian coast

by Sean McLachlan on


An underwater archaeological survey has turned up a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Albania.

As the above video shows, the remains of the ship are now little more than a heap of amphorae, the characteristic pots the Romans used to transport wine. The team hasn’t had a chance to excavate the site yet, so more finds may lie hidden beneath the bottom of the sea.

The archaeologists estimate that the ship was from the first or second century BC and was part of an extensive wine trade on the Adriatic Sea. The ship was about 30 meters long and contained an estimated 300 or more amphorae. The excavation was funded by the RPM Nautical Foundation, which has discovered numerous shipwrecks in recent years.

Shipwrecks can tell us a lot about early technology and trade. Several museums are dedicated to them. In Stockholm, Sweden, the Vasa Museum houses the well-preserved remains of a warship that sank in 1628. Despite its impressive appearance, it was badly designed and sank less than a nautical mile into its maiden voyage. In Portsmouth, England, the Mary Rose Museum has a warship that sank in battle in 1545. The Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, houses five Viking ships dating to about 1070.

“Deep Throat” parking garage gets a historical marker

by Melanie Renzulli on

Watergate. The Washington political scandal that made stars of Woodward, Bernstein, and “Deep Throat,” resulted in the resignation of Richard Nixon, and has since lent its suffix to thousands of scandals has a new landmark. It’s in a parking garage.

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward met with Watergate whistleblower Mark Felt (aka “Deep Throat”) six times from October 1972 to November 1973 in the parking garage under the office building located at 1401 Wilson Boulevard and North Nash Street in Rosslyn, Virginia (just over the bridge from DC). Although it has been more than 37 years since the Watergate scandal broke and six years since FBI officer Felt revealed himself to be “Deep Throat,” Arlington County erected a permanent, historical marker at the entrance to the garage only this week. The exact parking space where the pair met is number 32D.

While it remains to be seen whether the Rosslyn garage will merit a stop on a DC Scandals Tour – seriously, it’s just a parking garage – the permanent marker is a nice gesture toward recognizing journalists and whistleblowers and the often tedious work they must do to reveal the truth.

To learn more about the “Deep Throat” parking garage marker, check out this video news report from Tom Sherwood of Washington’s NBC News 4.