Lake Tahoe Truckee | Residential Design · Land Use Planning · Permit Plans
TAHOE CITY LAKEFRONT
TAHOE CITY LAKEFRONT
Chinquapin Condominiums, Tahoe City California
CONDOMINIUM COMPLETE REMODEL
Project Team
Designer:
MASTRIDICASA / Gary McKelvey Architect Collaboration
Contractor:
Welling Construction
Interior Designer:
Aspen Leaf Interiors
A complete lakefront condominium remodel reorganized around light, privacy, and the long eastern view across Lake Tahoe.
The residence already possessed the one thing design could not improve: its relationship to the water. The work focused on everything around it — rethinking nearly every interior wall, improving the arrival sequence and private rooms, and giving the home a warmer, more coherent character without competing with the view.
Working in collaboration with Gary McKelvey Architect, Aspen Leaf Interiors, and Welling Construction, the residence was transformed from floor to ceiling. The main living spaces were opened toward the lake, while the powder room, guest spaces, primary suite, open en-suite, sauna, and built-in storage were reworked for greater comfort and usefulness.
The material palette is deliberately restrained. Warm wood, exposed structure, stone, dark accents, and quieter surfaces give the rooms enough weight and texture to hold their own while allowing water, light, and horizon to remain dominant.
The result is a lakefront home that asks less of the rooms and gives more back to the people living in them — open when they want the view, intimate when they want retreat, and always connected to the lake outside.
OPEN LIVING + LAKE VIEW
The kitchen and sunken living area were reorganized to read as one connected sequence, all oriented toward the long view across Lake Tahoe and the eastern shore.
Opening the plan was only part of the work. The interior still needed depth, warmth, and distinct places to cook, gather, and settle in without becoming one undifferentiated space.
The existing timber ceiling brings warmth overhead, while the masonry fireplace gives the room visual weight and a place to gather. Against those stronger elements, the rest of the composition remains intentionally quiet.
The room feels expansive without feeling exposed, with the lake present not as a feature to be pointed at, but as part of everyday life inside the home.
GREAT ROOM
At the center of the great room, the fireplace and masonry wall give the interior weight and a natural place to gather without competing with the view beyond.
Warm timber overhead, stone, dark structural elements, and a restrained interior palette create enough texture and presence to give the room character without turning attention away from the water.
Here, restraint lets the lake do the dramatic work.
POWDER ROOM
The powder room was completely reshaped within a compact footprint, improving its proportions while also resolving the adjoining vestibule and guest bath.
Revising the angular shared walls allowed several small spaces to work better at once.
Within the room, stone, wood, metal, and warm light are concentrated into a small composition with enough richness to give the space presence without making it feel overworked.
It is a small room, but no longer one that feels compromised by its size.
The same wall revisions that improved the powder room and vestibule also reshaped the guest bath, creating the angled shower enclosure seen here.
Rather than treating that geometry as a leftover condition, the shower uses it to create a more spacious and distinctive bathing area within a tight plan.
One carefully considered adjustment gave three adjoining spaces more room to work.
GUEST ROOM
The primary suite was reorganized around several ways of occupying the room: sleeping, reading, working, stepping onto the deck, or simply looking out across the lake.
Those functions have enough definition to feel intentional without dividing the suite into separate compartments.
Custom wardrobe and closet cabinetry is integrated into the room rather than treated as furniture added afterward. It carries a substantial amount of everyday function while remaining visually quiet against the openness of the glass and view.
Warm wood floors and the existing timber ceiling give the room a grounded, tactile quality, while the quieter cabinetry and furnishings recede.
The suite gives the owners room to sleep, work, read, retreat, or simply sit with the lake — without asking the room to become five different rooms to do it.
BUILT-IN STORAGE
LAKE-FACING EN-SUITE
The primary en-suite was opened toward the lake, allowing the bath to share the natural light and long view of the adjoining room.
Rather than isolate the bath behind another layer of walls, the plan treats it as part of the larger composition of the suite while preserving the privacy the space requires.
Glass, reflective surfaces, pale stone, and quieter finishes allow light to move through the room while maintaining a deliberate contrast with the warmer wood of the bedroom beyond.
The transition from bedroom to bath remains open and fluid, allowing the water and horizon to stay present even in the most private part of the home.
EN-SUITE & SAUNA
The sauna completes the primary suite as a sequence of spaces for warming, cooling down, and retreat.
Integrated alongside the open en-suite, it adds another layer of comfort without becoming a decorative luxury gesture disconnected from the rest of the room.
Its warmth and enclosure provide a counterpoint to the glass, light, and openness around it — a smaller, more intimate space nested within the larger lake-facing suite.
Its value is in how naturally it fits into everyday life: close to the bath, steps from the bedroom, and ready whenever the owners want the lakefront home to feel a little more like a retreat.
