Mountain home geared for outdoor enjoyment
This year-round vacation house on the shores of Lake Tahoe could be almost anyone's favorite retreat. It is small, compact, efficient, and almost completely maintenance-free.
It contains but 1,760 square feet of space, and is made of rugged redwood inside and out. It sits low and sleek among the pines, hugs the mountainous terrain on which it is built, and blends beautifully with its rustic site in the Sierras of northern California and western Nevada.
It is a simple house, made for simple living and the maximum enjoyment of the outdoor attractions for which the area is famous. It was built by Mr. and Mrs. Sherrill Broudy of Santa Barbara, Calif., as a second home where they and their teen-age sons could go for weekends of skiing in winter and for water sports in summer. It is a place where Mr. Broudy can relax from his busy schedule as owner of a custom woodwork house for architects and designers. And it is a setting where Mrs. Broudy can set up her easel for uninterrupted painting. She is an artist who exhibits in the Santa Barbara area.
The house has just three bedrooms and a single large central area that is used as kitchen, dining, and living room. Mrs. Broudy did the decorating, keeping furnishings to simple, contemporary pieces. Accessories are often the ceramics of local potters and smooth stones of many sizes, an occasional window of stained glass, and her own bright paintings. It is a pleasing and restful, no-nonsense interior that does not invite clutter. The color scheme throughout is white, blue, and the natural hue of wood.
The Broudy house is one of many that conform to a Tahoe mountain style popularized by architect James Morton, AIA, of Bozeman, Mont. Mr. Morton, who has built hundreds of houses around the shores of Lake Tahoe, designs so that homeowners do not have to be concerned with snow loads in winter nor with sun glare in summer. His houses have deep overhangs, rustic shingled roofs, built-in cabinetry, and huge fireplaces of native stone.
