Lake Tahoe will soon have a new resort on the North Shore. In time for the ski season, the Ritz-Carlton Highlands is set to open its doors Dec. 9. The hotel sits mid-mountain in the Northstar-at-Tahoe ski area and will be open year round. The resort will feature 170 guest rooms, 23 private residences and 25 Ritz-Carlton Destination Club fractional ownership residences. Guest services will include ski-in and ski-out access, an intermountain gondola that connects to the Village-at-Northstar and a 17,000-square-foot spa and fitness center.
Opening at the same time is Manzanita, the resort’s restaurant created by San Francisco chef Traci Des Jardins. The restaurant will serve French-inspired California cuisine, seat 94 and include a 71-seat bar and lounge.
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.
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.
The hotel has begun taking reservations: www.ritzcarlton.com or 800-241-3333.