The Lazy Days of Summer

This is a picture of my great grandmother, Esther Hellman, and her daughter Clara Hellman Heller, relaxing on the porch of their summer home, Pine Lodge. You can't see it, but they are looking out at a magnificent view of Lake Tahoe. They look so relaxed here, sitting on wicker furniture in their white cotton dresses, sipping tea, and hanging out with their dogs. This picture was probably taken in 1903, the year that the house at Sugar Pine Point was finished. (Note the trunks of the sugar pine trees acting as columns for the porch)

The Hellmans used to spend most of August at Lake Tahoe. They would invite lots of friends to visit and would fish, swim, take walks, go horseback riding, and travel up the nearby General Creek for picnics. There was no road around the west side of the lake, so the Hellmans had to take a ferry from Tahoe City to their home.

Sugar Pine Point is now a California state park.

I had a great time finding out about my ancestors' lives while researching Towers of Gold, my book on Isaias Hellman. But this is one of the few spontaneous photos I have of them. Most of the pictures are formal, posed shots, nothing like this picture, which features an unguarded moment.

Photos are critical when writing narrative non-fiction. Even though I poured through thousands of pages of Hellman's diaries and letters, I never saw a description of the days they spent at their summer home in Lake Tahoe. But after seeing this picture, I could add a description about the time they spent lazing about on their front porch.

The Bucolic Life at Lake Tahoe

I am Lake Tahoe-bound for a few days for both work and pleasure

I will be talking about the life and times of Isaias Hellman at Living History Day at Sugar Pine Point at noon on Saturday, July 26. Sugar Pine Point is the Hellman’s former summer home. Starting in the late 1890s, he bought land along the lake, during a time when Lake Tahoe was not a popular vacation spot. He eventually amassed more than 2,000 acres and 2 miles of lake shore and built a beautiful rustic mansion.

The state bought the property in 1968. Each summer, the park service hosts a day where people dress up in costumes and discuss the people who have lived at Sugar Pine Point. Native Americans talk about how the Washoe used the property during the summer, a re-enacter dresses like General Phipps, who lived in a log cabin on the land, and others dress in art deco clothes to represent a more modern era. There are also tours of the house.

I will talk about how Hellman came to build the house and the kinds of activities the wealthy enjoyed.

I also will be dropping by the poetry benefit for the Squaw Valley Community of Writers Thursday night. Lucille Clifton, Robert Haas, and Sharon Olds, among others, will be there.

I am also planning to visit Virginia City, the home of the Comstock Lode. One of Hellman’s business partners was John Mackay, who made an immense fortune in the silver mines. Mackay used some of the money to open the Nevada Bank in 1875, which was the richest bank in the country with a capitalization of $10 million. Yet, just 15 years later, the Nevada Bank was almost bankrupt. Hellman bought it, turned it around, and eventually merged it with Wells Fargo.