Robert C.
Yelp
On your way to Baldwin or Pope beaches? Learn the real story of the ultra wealthy Baldwin and Pope family dynasties a century ago in this area of Lake Tahoe.
The Tallac Historic site consists of the Baldwin estate, the Pope estate, and Valhalla grounds. I will write on the Baldwin Museum in another review. Plentiful paved parking lots, flush toilets, and drinking fountains on immaculately landscaped grounds.
The Pope family mansion was built by Lloyd Tevis, president of Wells Fargo Bank in 1880. Tevis ran into financial difficulties in the early 1920s, and the house was repossessed by the bank. Imagine you president of the bank, and your own bank repossesses your mansion!
George Pope purchased the house, and the Pope family used the mansion and surrounding cabins as a summer vacation home. Eventually through the years, the house fell into disuse, and disrepair with vandalism. The US Department of Forestry obtained the rights to the house, and fixed it up as a national historic site.
The only way to see the insides of the mansion is to pay $10 for a guided tour of the house, which goes toward maintenance. Wife and I fork over $20 for a chance to go back in time, to the 1920s.
Open the front door, and you are immediately struck by the expensive redwood paneling and ceiling beams. The Pope family wanted everyone to know the moment they entered the door, that this was a mansion only for the very wealthy.
On one wall are photographs of famous celebrities, including Rudolph Valentino and Max Bauer, heavyweight boxing champion, with an autograph asking "George, when are you going to pay me for milking your cows!?"
The living room has a chest set, a globe, and a telescope aimed through the windows overlooking Lake Tahoe, only feet away. A head trophy of a stag deer hangs on the wall. Living room floor shows a slope and a disjoined wood pattern, suggesting the front of the room was once a porch. One door at floor height, another door with a step up. Padded area in front of the massive stone fireplace -no insulation in the house, so it was difficult to heat in cold weather.
Upstairs, there is one room with a door to nowhere. Open the door, and you are stepping out of the second floor, with a 12 foot drop to the ground. During a storm not long ago, a tree crashed down, crushing the porch here. The government decided not to rebuilt the porch, as it was an entry way for vandals.
Touch the walls, and notice wall cloth, not wall paper. Cloth with intricate designs, tacked to the walls of raw lumber wood, as glued cloth or paper will bubble with time.
The main bedroom had a fainting couch, where the lady of the estate had her dress laced up to keep her waist thin looking. Discrete door between lady's bedroom and the gentleman's bedroom. Bell to ring for service from the maids late at night -there goes her beauty rest!
Beyond the bedroom is a second story porch room, with screens on three sides, for sleeping on hot summer nights. People believed in sleeping outdoors in the mountain air, to keep away tuberculosis.
The seamstress had her own work room, with large windows for light, along with a sewing machine. People changed clothes 5 or 6 times a day, and buttons came off, or tears occurred, requiring a seamstress.
Downstairs beyond double glass door is the dining room. There is a phone room just before the second glass door where guests in suits, took phone calls in the middle of the 2-4 hour 7 course dinners!
Children under 18 ate at the servants dining quarters. There were at least 35 servants along with the adolescents eating at a table which seated 8, so they ate in shifts.
Kitchen had a monster stove top which ran from 4am to midnight. Hot as hades in the kitchen, even with a large ceiling vent thrusting high in the sky. Mother of all cooking pans and pots, monster sized, with huge butcher block center table for cutting and preparing food.
Docents like Randa dressed in costumes of the 1920s.
We say goodbye to our docent, and check out the 1930s fire engine with a player organ, the 1931 roadster, a 1920s bus, and a 1920s SUV, with six doors! Gas pump from the 1930s.
Closed at this time was the boat houses, complete with launch railings, so that guests wouldn't get wet getting in the boat. Not like MacArthur coming ashore in the Philippines!
Sign on the flushed toilet bathrooms, saying feet washing for beach goers next to parking lot. Don't want beach goers washing their feet and clogging up the toilets with sand, for the next unfortunate toilet user!
