Ritz-Carlton highlands

The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe will be the area's first five star-caliber hotel. The ski-in, ski-out resort is slated to have 173-rooms, and a 20,000 square foot spa at The Highlands in North Lake Tahoe, California, on the Northstar-at-Tahoe^TM Mountain. With ground breaking taking place during summer 2006 the hotel is scheduled to open in 2009.

The hotel will also be an attractive venue for groups with 11,000 square feet of meeting space - ideal for conferences and events.  The lavishly-appointed spa will face to the south, offering guests spectacular mountain views, with many treatment rooms, a private pool and whirlpool tubs.  This project will also include 75 Residences at The Ritz-Carlton, and 78 The Ritz-Carlton Club, fractional ownership residences.

When completed, The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe will be one of a few hotels in the world to be located at the mid-mountain area of a ski resort and to be connected to a world class alpine village by a gondola ride. The ski-in/ski-out concept will allow residents and vacationers to "park their cars and forget about them" once they arrive at The Highlands, better preserving the natural environment and maximizing freedom to enjoy the mountain's skiing and snowboarding activities, including its extensive cross-country and snow shoeing trail network that guests can also use for hiking and biking in the warmer months.

"Our main objective for The Highlands is to create a true mountain resort experience, echoing and respecting Lake Tahoe's history, natural setting and architectural heritage," notes Blake Riva, managing partner, East West Partners. "We want to draw from North Lake Tahoe's historic vernacular of the early 1900s, and add new, more contemporary interpretation with today's building technology and techniques. But more than just designing buildings, we're making sure the buildings have a naturally weathered appearance in their wooded hillside locations."

The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe design concept makes use of native granite stone, recycled steel, and logs and lumber of the Sierra Tahoe region. Similar to The Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch, it will also be a marked departure from the more traditional Ritz Carlton hotels, featuring a more rustic mountain lodge ambience in the tradition of other great mountain lodges of the West built at the turn of the century.

Mark Hornberger, principal for design at San Francisco-based Hornberger + Worstell Architects, is the design architect for The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe, and describes the new project as unique and distinctive to the region. "Its lodge design style features steeply-pitched roof forms with shed dormers, sheltered stone porches and entryways, stone fireplaces in each guest room and bedroom sitting area, wide double windows to enhance both solar exposure, and breathtaking outside mountain and valley views."

The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe will seek to achieve a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) -- certified level from the U.S. Green Building Council, one of the first large scale, five-star hotels to do so in the U.S. Other environmentally friendly features for The Highlands include underground parking instead of outdoor asphalt parking lots, reducing the need for paved roads and maximizing natural, permeable surfaces most suitable for restoring ground water from rain and snow. The condos and townhomes will be purposely attached to reduce footprints and auto use. From its inception, The Highlands will set a new standard for sustainable development in the mountains.

Other environmentally friendly features for The Highlands include underground parking instead of outdoor asphalt parking lots, reducing the need for paved roads and maximizing natural, permeable surfaces most suitable for restoring ground water from rain and snow. Green roofs made of recycled rubber tires will be designed to give buildings at The Highlands a 100-year life span. The condos and townhomes will be purposely attached to reduce footprints and auto use.