George Whittell and the Thunderbird yacht
Words + Photos: Mike Blanchard
On a rocky point on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, tucked away in a boathouse, one of the greatest speedboats ever built, the Thunderbird, rides in the cold mountain water
Thunderbird is arguably the most famous boat in the wooden boat community and known the world over for its style and speed.
It was commissioned in 1936 to go with the house millionaire George Whittell was building on Lake Tahoe. It was designed by renowned boat designer John Hacker and built by the Huskins Boat works in Michigan. The hull is double-planked mahogany and the superstructure is stainless steel designed to mimic the lines of Whittell’s DC-2 airplane.
The boat cost $87,000 in pre-war money and was delivered in 1940. Whittell used the boat for a couple of years but with the outbreak of World War II he hid the boat away so it would not be requisitioned for the war effort. It was hung from slings in its emptied boathouse.
After Whittell died the boat went through a couple of hands before coming into the possession of Bill Harrah in 1962. Harrah had it brought to his shops in Reno and completely rebuilt before being put back in the water.
Thunderbird is powered by two Allison V-12 engines from a P-38 Lightning fighter plane, each making over 1,200 horse-power.
Originally Thunderbird was equipped with twin 550-horsepower V-12 Kermath engines. But when Harrah acquired the boat he had two 1,200-horsepower Allison V-12 engines from a P-38 Lightning fighter plane installed, giving it significantly more giddy-up.
Harrah also had the superstructure redesigned to include a flying bridge and uncovered the rear of the boat.
The amazing thing is that after going through several hands Thunderbird still lives in its original boathouse on the summer estate Whittell built on the lake.
These photos almost didn’t happen. We emailed the Thunderbird Lodge management requesting press credentials and were told that we were not distinguished enough and they did not want to be in a magazine called Rust.
Little wonder when you find out that the rental on the Thunderbird is $5,000 per hour and there is a two-hour minimum. So $10K to bring it out of the boathouse.
We are old hands at being high-graded, but that won’t keep us from a story. The funny thing is, the people who manage the estate are essentially aping the estate’s original owner in their attitude.
George Whittell was the only son of a couple who made their millions during the Gold Rush. Whittell grew up privileged in his parents’ Knob Hill mansion and traveled the world as a young man. On their death he inherited roughly $29 million.
Thunderbird Lodge sits on a rocky point on the east shore of Lake Tahoe
By the late 1920s he had grown his fortune to over $50 million and just before the 1929 crash he cashed out and saved himself from the financial disaster that engulfed the rest of the world.
In 1935 he purchased 27 miles of Lake Tahoe shoreline, encompassing approximately 40,000 acres and most of the eastern and northern shore of the lake.
In 1936 Whittell began construction of a summer home in a beautiful spot on the lake. The lodge is remarkably small, even for a time of smallish houses. It has only two bedrooms for him and his French wife. There were no guest rooms on the estate. Guests were expected to leave when the fun was over. If they got too drunk or rowdy they were tucked into the estate’s jail cell for the night.
The grounds of the lodge are decorated with fanciful stonework.
The buildings were designed by the renowned Nevada architect Frederick DeLongchamps and built by a crew of accomplished craftsmen. Among the tradesmen that he used to build the home were a number of students from an Indian school who had been trained as stone masons.
In some ways Whittell represents some of the worst traits of the wealthy during the tail-end of the Gilded Age. Obsessed with security and privacy he installed electronic eyes in the gates, had private security men onsite and an electronic system that he used to track his servants’ movements in the house. He had his private jail cell and, if needed, the sheriff in his pocket to keep undesirables away.
Whittell loved exotic animals. He had a stone building built to house his pigmy elephant, with Dutch doors giving a view of the lake. More notoriously, Whittell had a pet lion named Bill that he took with him everywhere. Bill bit people from time to time; these faux pas were glossed over with money. Apparently Whittell was a common sight driving around San Francisco in his Duesenberg touring car with Bill the lion sitting in the seat next to him.
Whittell was a sportsman in the old sense of the word. He hung out with famous actors and figures like Howard Hughes, Ty Cobb and Jack Dempsey. He loved womanizing, high-stakes gambling, big-game hunting, flying airplanes, fast cars and racing boats. Much in the way Jeff Bezos fancies himself an astronaut, Whittell fancied himself a ship’s master and insisted people call him Captain.
Among other toys, Whittell owned a Douglas DC-2, a Grumman seaplane, six custom Duesenbergs, a 145-foot yacht, a slew of racing boats and the Thunderbird.
Whittell died in 1969 and, admirably, left his fortune to zoos and wildlife charities.
After his death the estate slipped into disrepair before being bought in the 1980s by the New York financier Jack Dreyfus, who proceeded to make a tasteless modern addition to the lodge to house his guests and throw parties for clients. Mrs. Dreyfus even had the beautiful woodwork in the original lodge painted a ghastly white.
Since then the estate has gone through a couple of owners. The land ended up being traded to the Bureau of Land Management, but they did not want the house. The lodge property was eventually taken over by the non-profit Thunderbird Lodge Preservation Society, which now manage the property and operates the Thunderbird yacht.
The view out the door of the Thunderbird’s boat house. At one time everything in view was owned by George Whittell.