Former Lake Tahoe Casino Sold to Health Care Group, Demolition Planned

Posted on: May 14, 2021, 03:50h. 

Last updated on: May 14, 2021, 04:44h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

The Lakeside Inn and Casino on Lake Tahoe’s South Shore in Stateline, Nv., has been sold.

Lake Tahoe Lakeside Inn Casino
The Lakeside Inn and Casino never reopened following Nevada’s order to cease operations last year because of the pandemic. The resort has been sold to Barton Health, which plans to demolish and reutilize the property. (Image: Tahoe Daily Tribune)

A victim of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lakeside Inn announced its permanent closure in April of 2020. The announcement came less than a month after Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) ordered all commercial casinos in the state to temporarily shutter operations.

Lakeside’s ownership group cited its business being denied a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the federal government. Congress and the Small Business Association later amended its PPP regulations to allow gaming operators to participate. But it came too late for Lakeside and its 218 employees.

In March, an auction was held to sell off roughly $7 million worth of items, including slot machines, table games, furniture, kitchen and office equipment, vehicles, and memorabilia. 

Demolition Planned

The Douglas County Recorder’s Office revealed this week that the property and land has been sold to Barton Health for $13.3 million. The purchase includes the resort and hotel structure, plus eight acres of land that it sits on at the corner of Kahle Drive and US Highway 50. 

Barton Health is a health care network that serves the greater South Lake Tahoe area. Barton Health currently operates an urgent care facility directly across from the Lakeside Inn.

Our Community Health Needs Assessments continue to identify access to care as a top priority for our community,” said Dr. Clint Purvance, Barton Health president and CEO. “As we outgrow our South Lake Tahoe campus, expanding services at Stateline not only meets our strategic growth goals, but allows us to increase access to patients on the East Shore.”

For Lakeside’s longtime patrons who had hoped it would be sold to someone with plans of reopening the casino and resort, such hope is now lost. Barton Health says it will demolish the structure and perform an environmental remediation of the site before building a new health care facility. 

The expansion of the urgent care location with the Lakeside Inn acquisition, Barton Health explains, will allow the health care network to “offer many more services, including lower-cost outpatient services.”

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The Lakeside Inn’s origins trace back to 1969, when Grover Rowland and Herbert Fisher opened a small gaming hall called the Caesars Inn. The original casino came with only a handful of table games and around 100 slot machines. 

In 1972, Harvey Gross, who owned and operated Harvey’s Resort Hotel just a mile down the street in Stateline, purchased the Caesars Inn and renamed it Harvey’s Inn. Following Gross’s death in 1985, Harvey’s Inn was sold to a group of local investors and rebranded as Lakeside. 

Over the years, Lakeside has become outdated. While its 123 outdated guestrooms struggled to attract tourists, the casino leaned heavily on locals for its gaming and restaurant business. 

“The favorite casino for locals made it through six presidents, got a close-up view of the Gondola Fire in 2002, survived The Great Recession, but could not make it through a global pandemic,” wrote Bill Rozak in the Tahoe Daily Tribune last year.