Vikingsholm

Vikingsholm is a 38-room mansion on the shore of Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe, in El Dorado County, California. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been called one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture in North America.

Lora Josephine Knight built it as a summer home. The foundation was laid in 1928 and about 200 workers built the house in 1929. Before starting, she and her architect traveled to Scandinavia to gather ideas. Some parts of the structure contain no nails or spikes because of old-fashioned construction methods, and most of the building uses local materials. Knight and her husband were also primary backers of Charles Lindbergh’s non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

The main house is made of four rectangular wings around a courtyard. Pine and fir siding with ornamental hand carvings covers the walls, or the stone is left exposed. The east wing is the main one, with a square three-story tower at the north end and a two-story tower at the south end. Scandinavian serpent designs are carved above the doors and windows, and the east wing’s walls were built to resemble those of Olavinlinna, a stone castle.

The north and south wings have gabled sod roofs with an original sprinkler system. Wildflowers and grasses once grew on them, but since the fir trees in the courtyard were removed, only grass grows. The west wing’s original roof was made of split logs held in place without nails or spikes; a shingled roof replaced it after a tree fell on that part of the building. Its carved beams end in dragon heads, and the carvings on the west entry porch were based on a church entrance the architect saw in Scandinavia.

Six buildings count as part of Vikingsholm: the main house, the workshop, the duplex, the teahouse, the transformer building and the gardener’s cottage. The duplex, built as extra guest housing, now holds the museum and visitor center managed by the park system.

The teahouse stands on Fannette Island and can only be reached by boat, up natural-looking stairs cut into the rock. It was used to host guests for tea. Its roof, door and windows were lost to vandalism and only the stone structure and a fireplace remain; the original trail to it weathered away and was restored in 2007. Vikingsholm and the teahouse are part of Emerald Bay State Park, which has been declared a National Natural Landmark.