One of Lake Tahoe’s most scenic ski resorts sadly won’t be open for skiing and snowboarding for the 2024-25 season.
Clouded in controversy regarding expansion plans for more than a decade, Homewood Ski resort has made the decision to shut down for the upcoming season to the dismay of many local residents who consider Homewood their neighborhood ski resort.
According to a statement posted on its website, the resort has been “operating at a deficit” while it awaits the approval of changes to the 2011 Homewood Master Plan. A modest 1,200-acre ski area on Lake Tahoe’s gorgeous west shore, Homewood opened in 1962 and was bought in 2006 by JMA Ventures, a San Francisco real estate developer that has always entertained expansion plans.
“Without a clear path forward, our financial partner has withdrawn their support for this ski season,” a Homewood website statement said. “As a result, we are now in the regrettable position of being unable to operate or sell season passes for the 2024-25 season. We understand the deep disappointment this announcement will cause. It goes without saying that this decision was not made lightly.”
In its announcement, Homewood said the closure is partly because the resort is still “awaiting approval of the amendments,” which include moving the gondola terminal, reducing residential density and opening the “view corridors of the mountain and lake.”
In 2011, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) approved JMA’s plans to develop more than 100 ski-in, ski-out homes and condos, as part of a larger redevelopment project. Progress was halted due to environmental lawsuits by the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore. While the lawsuits were eventually settled, other challenges emerged.
The future of Homewood took a dramatic change in recent years. A new plan quietly emerged that JMA Ventures appeared ready to convert Homewood into a private, members-only resort. The news created anger from Homewood locals, who opposed the change to a private resort.
The Homewood private resort plans appeared to be shelved and progress seemed to be moving forward until the current bombshell-like announcement last week of not operating this season.
Keep Homewood Public (KHP), a coalition opposed to the resort’s privatization, said it was “shocked and saddened” by the news of the resort’s closure.
“Homewood is the heart of the West Shore. We don’t want to imagine what could happen to our community if that heart were to stop beating permanently,” the KHP group said on a Facebook post. “This is the wrong choice for the community, the mountain’s local employees, West Shore businesses, the rental market, and for the overall project/development.”
Homewood ski resort says it’s still awaiting approval of the amendments, including the Madden Chair replacement (gondola) permit submitted over a year ago, to move forward on ski infrastructure and other investments.
“Hypothetical fears and false rumors regarding public access to the mountain from Keep Homewood Public’s leadership have dramatically slowed the pace of the approval process,” Homewood resort says. “We tried to make the West Shore resort private, and the plan met a lot of resistance from the community.”
The question lingering for many is – Will Homewood shut down for good? The resort says it “remains focused on working through the approval process at this year’s upcoming planning meetings with community members and governing agencies in the hope that we can get the gondola installed next year and someday soon resume operations at the resort.”
