Charlie Soule has owned The Soule Domain restaurant at the western entrance to Crystal Bay for 40 years. In that time, he has watched the small casino corridor go from a vibrant neighborhood full of shops, restaurants, and a bustling nightlife to an area with boarded-up and dilapidated buildings and empty parking lots littered with trash. Out of the three anchor businesses in Crystal Bay — the Crystal Bay Club, Tahoe Biltmore, and Cal Neva — two have been closed for several years: the Cal Neva since 2013 and the Biltmore since 2022. Just to the west of The Soule Domain, another derelict building, the Tahoe Inn, has been sitting empty for almost 10 years.
“Right now, and I’ve been here a long time, the neighborhood sucks,” Soule said. “It’s about as bad as it’s ever been.”
The tiny neighborhood of Crystal Bay, which abuts the California-Nevada border and straddles Highway 28, presents a strange dichotomy. Once home to the Hollywood elite in its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, the neighborhood is one of the 100 priciest zip codes in the country according to PropertyShark, yet is now a mixture of empty, decaying casino-hotels alongside fine dining restaurants that attract Tahoe’s wealthiest. Despite the area’s current downtrodden state, community members remain optimistic about Crystal Bay’s future, pinning all their hopes on the redevelopment of the Cal Neva and Biltmore. Although both these projects have faced their fair share of hurdles over the years, including multiple ownership changes, they now seem on stable footing, especially after the Biltmore’s new owners recently avoided defaulting on their loan.
A fall from grace
Long-time residents remember what the area used to be like before it took a turn for the worse in the early 2000s. Linda Offerdahl is the executive director of the Incline Village Crystal Bay Community & Business Association (IVCBA) who has lived in Incline for 36 years. She recalls when the Cal Neva’s Frank Sinatra Celebrity Showroom was the gathering place for the community, hosting school fundraisers, and the Biltmore was the locals’ casino where residents would go for affordable fun and to host parties or dance at its nightclub.
“Back in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, Crystal Bay was a very hopping place, it provided a lot of economic stability to our communities,” she said. “Since then, things have changed … [the area] is deplorable. You see the boarded-up Biltmore. It’s not a thriving community.”
While the Crystal Bay Club (CBC) and Jim Kelly’s Nugget remain mainstays of the neighborhood, with the CBC famous for attracting top-notch music acts, the two businesses can’t hold up the area on their own.
“You wouldn’t believe how quiet it is here at night and even in the day,” said Soule. “There is virtually no one walking around, no traffic, no people on the sidewalks, no reason to really come here unless you are specifically coming here to my place, the Smoke Door, the Nugget, or CBC.”
Locals trace the demise of Crystal Bay to when the Biltmore sold to Roger Wittenberg in 2007. Wittenberg had plans to build Boulder Bay, a massive project that was to include 275 hotel rooms and a 10,000-square-foot casino that was approved in 2011. That’s when the neglect began, residents say.
Elise Fett is a local architect who has lived in Crystal Bay for 30 years. She says the Biltmore had already taken a turn for the worse in 2010, the year she got married and was looking for hotel rooms for her guests. At the Biltmore she found burn holes in the carpets, trashed furniture, and a parking lot full of potholes.
“The unfortunate dilapidation and lack of upgrade by the owners of the casinos started way back in the day when I moved here. They didn’t keep upgrading with the times, they lost clientele,” she said. “It was disgusting, so far beyond where it should have gotten to. And people stopped coming.”
When Wittenberg did away with popular attractions like the Biltmore’s prime rib night and the $1.99 all-day breakfast menu, that was the nail in the coffin for the hotel/casino, Soule said.
“All he wanted to do was to tear it down,” he added. “By the time he could do anything permit-wise, his funding was no longer available. By then it was a dump because he was not taking care of it. It operated another 10 years, but it had lost the vibe. He got rid of the amenities that brought people in — the discounts.”
Contributing to the demise of Crystal Bay’s casino-hotels was the national downturn in gaming. According to Jim Kelley, whose father opened the Nugget in 1961, gaming peaked in 2003.
“Gaming revenue right now is 30% of what it was then for the North Shore,” said Kelley, who has owned the Nugget with his brother since 1993. “A lot of that has to do with Indian gaming.”
Kelley remembers when the casinos used to bus 1,000 people up from Sacramento and the California foothills to Crystal Bay on Saturdays in the summer. But with the rise of Indian casinos across California, there was no longer a need to bring gamblers over Donner Summit. As casino revenue dropped, owners stopped investing in their properties.
“Gaming was always the primary economic driver and gaming was decreasing, so there was no incentive to put money in the casino portion of the property, but that was what kept the rest going,” Kelley said.
The Cal Neva fell victim to this cycle as well. By the time it sold to a series of owners starting in 2005, it was in severe decline. In 2013 it closed for renovations and hasn’t re-opened since.
Adding to the current blight of Crystal Bay is the empty Tahoe Inn, located across from the Cal Neva on the California side, and technically in Kings Beach. JMA Ventures, which owns Homewood Mountain Resort, purchased the property in 2006 to acquire its 100 tourist accommodation units (TAUs). The motel closed in 2015 and has been boarded up since. If the Homewood master plan revisions are approved, JMA will transfer the TAUs to the ski resort’s new 73-room hotel and demolish the Tahoe Inn. And what happens to the Tahoe Inn if the master plan amendments are not approved? “I don’t know,” said JMA Ventures Chairman Art Chapman.
Amid these three boarded-up buildings sit two high-end restaurants — The Soule Domain and Smoke Door, which opened in July 2023. The latter, a Japanese restaurant, offers prix fixe menus that range from $88 to $198. Server Zachariah Stein says Crystal Bay’s blight has not affected business.
“My guests have things to say like, ‘I wish it didn’t look so sad,’ but I don’t think it’s a deterrent by any means,” he said. “My guests are excited for the potential that exists here.”
Redevelopment has arrived
The potential is exactly what has a lot of residents enthusiastic about Crystal Bay’s outlook for the first time in many years. The Cal Neva was purchased in 2023 by Denver-based McWhinney, a real estate investment and development firm, the 13-acre property’s fourth owner in 20 years. McWhinney plans to revitalize the property with a 219-room hotel and new wellness center, and by breathing new life into the hotel’s famous Circle Bar and theater. The company is renovating rather than tearing down most of the buildings, like the lodge and hotel tower, but had to demolish most of the run-down cabins.
According to Jason Newcomer, McWhinney’s senior vice president of hospitality development, the Cal Neva will “not have a casino-first design. It’s seen as a complimentary amenity, like the speakeasy and multiple food and beverage. It’s part of a broader mix.”
Two of the three construction phases have been approved by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). McWhinney started on the project this summer doing site work, stormwater improvements, and utilities, as well as $7 million in structural repair work. The third phase, which includes 11 villas, has not yet been approved. The goal is to re-open the Cal Neva in time for its 100th anniversary in 2026.
Newcomer said that McWhinney decided to invest in the Cal Neva because it saw the property’s potential to fill a void in the community.
“We see it as a place to gather and entertain and there is really a lack of that,” he said. “Over 20 years it seems on the North Shore that the places to gather and entertain have gone away … It would be exciting for the North Shore, which has lost over 400 hotel rooms over the last 30 years.”
The fact that work has begun on the Cal Neva property after a decade of sitting mostly dormant excites residents and business owners in Crystal Bay.
“You can see construction of the Cal Neva, they are going at it,” Soule said. “We are really excited to have the Cal Neva back in our community … it’s a tough period of time right now. We are all looking forward to the Cal Neva reopening.”
Residents are also breathing a sigh of relief after Newport Beach-based EKN Development, which bought the Biltmore in 2021 with plans to build a Waldorf Astoria resort and hotel, came back from the brink of defaulting on one of its two loans. EKN had originally defaulted on its $110 million loan in April, and the property was set to go to auction in Aug. 13, which was then postponed twice to Oct. 8 and then Nov. 5. On Oct. 11, EKN announced that the notice of default had been rescinded.
“We knew the dates were coming,” said EKN founder and CEO Ebbie Nakhjavani. “We focused on coming up with a way to restructure debt and pay off old lenders, and that’s what we did … we’ve been working on this for several months now.”
Despite financial difficulties, Nakhjavani remains confident that the $730 million project will move forward.
“Projects of this magnitude are not easy,” he said. “It takes significant effort to implement something like this. There are a lot of moving parts, it’s susceptible to financial markets, and also a lot of input from the community needed to be taken into consideration.”
When people say ‘Tahoe,’ everybody will think of Crystal Bay because of the beauty it will offer.”
~ EKN founder and CEO Ebbie Nakhjavani
The 15-acre EKN project is a 47% reduction in units from Boulder Bay and includes 76 hotel rooms, 36 hotel residences, and 25 exclusive homes. Like the Cal Neva, the Waldorf Astoria’s casino will not be the primary focus as it was in the past but viewed instead as an amenity. There will also be a 10,000-square-foot spa.
Work on the Biltmore site, like undergrounding electrical lines and constructing a stormwater run-off facility, began under Boulder Bay plans. Using the 2011 Boulder Bay approved application, EKN applied for a revised permit with changes to architecture, increased residential units, and reduced TAUs, which the TRPA approved in 2023. The developer has continued making pre-construction improvements such as removing asbestos and demolishing old cabins. Nakhjavani said that EKN will be ready in the spring to tear down the Biltmore and start construction, which he expects to take around 3 years.
Optimism about the future
Nakhjavani believes that with both a revamped Cal Neva and new Waldorf Astoria coming in the future, Crystal Bay will once again be a thriving community. This includes improvements to the Highway 28 corridor by EKN, such as removing the Crystal Bay Motel on the lake side of the highway to become open space.
“When you arrive at Crystal Bay you are really going to see you have arrived at a quaint and incredible village. It’s not going to be a major thoroughfare,” Nakhjavani said. “Crystal Bay will be completely transformed into the heart of Tahoe, the nucleus of Tahoe. When people say ‘Tahoe,’ everybody will think of Crystal Bay because of the beauty it will offer.”
depressing, but is optimistic about its outlook with new developers for the Biltmore and Cal Neva. She said about EKN, “We couldn’t have a better developer here in our neck of the woods.”
Locals are happy that the EKN project is proceeding.
“Because of last week’s announcement that the foreclosure is now resolved and the project is now moving ahead, myself and others in my neighborhood are relieved,” said Fett. “It’s a relief for all of us here. There’s been such a scar for the entire time we’ve been here.”
Offerdahl of the IVCBA believes that with the much-anticipated face-lift of the Cal Neva and a new resort to replace the aging Biltmore, Crystal Bay can regain its former glory.
“My vision is that Crystal Bay will return to being the entertainment mecca of the North Shore,” she said. “Crystal Bay is the introduction of visitors to Nevada. My hope is that it becomes a vibrant community again and puts a really great face forward with the redevelopment of these properties.”
