Emerald Bay and the Castle Called Vikingsholm
Near Tahoe City, California
At the southwest corner of the lake lies Emerald Bay, perhaps the single most photographed spot on Lake Tahoe, a narrow, glacier carved inlet cradling the lake's only island. In the late nineteen twenties a wealthy widow named Lora Josephine Knight bought the head of the bay and that little island for two hundred fifty thousand dollars. The fjord like scenery reminded her of Scandinavia, so she commissioned a Swedish architect to build a summer home in the old Nordic style.
The result, completed in nineteen twenty-nine, is Vikingsholm, a thirty-eight room mansion considered one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture in North America. Around two hundred workers hand hewed its timbers, carved its intricate designs, and forged its hinges and latches by hand. On the crest of Fannette Island, that lone rock in the bay, Mrs.
Knight built a tiny stone teahouse resembling a small castle, though she rarely used it. She spent her summers here until her death in nineteen forty-five. Today Emerald Bay is a state park, and its clear shallows even hold an underwater trail of historic sunken boats and barges, one of California's first underwater parks.
