Valhalla Boathouse Theatre celebrates 20 years in South Lake Tahoe

It once housed The Shiek, a boat named in honor of Rudolf Valentino, friend and frequent guest to the Pope Estate in South Lake Tahoe. The Shiek was the biggest and fastest boat of its time on Lake Tahoe.

In the late 1800's it housed the boats of William Tevis who owned the 75 acre sprawling estate along the South Shore.

"It" is the Valhalla Boathouse, a historic building that was recreated as a theater after a dream from the 1980s became a reality for members of the community who worked to clean out what had become a dilapidated storage shed and turn it into a focal point for the Tallac Historic Site.

In the late 1980s, Carol Spain, the founding Executive Director of the Tahoe Tallac Association (now Valhalla Tahoe) was pouring wine at one of the organization’s arts events when she was introduced to author, USC Professor, and "Hug Doctor" Leo Buscaglia, who was attending. Carol shared her dream with Leo to transform the Valhalla boathouse into a community theatre and Leo loved the idea. He committed half of the proceeds from his next book and, along with Carol Spain, committed to developing the project and raising the funds.

This effort was truly a community one, with countless individuals and organizations investing in the project with Spain and Buscaglia and the Tahoe Tallac Association Board of Directors leading the charge. Many bureaucratic, financial and design and engineering hurdles had to be cleared that involved complex negotiations with the Forest Service and funding appropriations from congress.

Carol Spain and David Kurtzman made three lobbying trips to Washington, DC in the early 1990s, but it wasn’t until Kurtzman heard that Senator Harry Reid would be speaking at a Tahoe Douglas Rotary Club meeting that they were able to get past the staff line and meet with Reid face to face. The Nevada senator was then on the Senate Appropriations Committee. From that meeting Spain and Kurtzman secured $250,000 to transform the boathouse into a theatre.

Tremendous community outreach locally in the Tahoe Basin as well as Northern Nevada and California was undertaken to cement support for the project and raise funds. In 1996, twenty years ago, the project was complete and Valhalla open the theatre for its first summer season.

When Buscaglia died unexpectedly in 1998, donations were made in his honor to his beloved Boathouse Theatre project.

Today, the Boathouse Theatre is home to live musical performances, comedy, theater and other special events including wedding. The unique feature of the back of the stage opening to show Lake Tahoe makes it a special spot.