League to Save Lake Tahoe founding family members gathered with board members and donors to dedicate the Spurlock/Evers Environment and Education Center on May 22. The League’s LEED-certified building, located in the heart of South Lake Tahoe on the corner of Tulare Avenue and Lake Tahoe Boulevard, hopes to educate and inspire the next generation of environmental stewards.
“This building is not just for us,” said Darcie Goodman Collins, chief executive officer for the League to Save Lake Tahoe. “It is for our community and our partners.”
The building houses the League offices and includes an interactive environment education center, which will be open to the public, a state-of-the-art conference room, visitor gift shop, and an outdoor amphitheater in the back which will host a speaker series and movie screenings utilizing a headphone system to ensure a tranquil environment for nearby neighbors.
The League is partnering with the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center on the education center exhibits in 2025, and with Adam Prost, former director of exhibition design at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, for exhibits that will be coming in 2026.
Margot Kramer Biehle, Marin County League board member, said it adds to the permanence of the League’s mission in the Lake Tahoe Basin that began in 1957.
“This building will be a really beautiful community benefit and asset,” Kramer Biehle said. “With the environmental education center and the conference abilities, it gives a location where the community can come together and collaborate. And we can invite the community to join us in the projects we’re engaging in and our mission To Keep Tahoe Blue.”
With a background in regenerative economics and companies, Marin County and Tahoe resident and League board member Lynelle Cameron said the new center is a role model.
“I think all of the work that they did, not just to make it LEED-certified and a green building, but to use wood from the Calder Fire and to use local contractors, I think there’s a huge opportunity for the basin to think about regenerative urban economics and regenerative communities and a huge part of that is using local contractors.”
The center will be opening to the public in June, Thursdays through Saturdays from noon to 5:30 p.m. The public grand opening is July 11.
Interesting Facts
- The finishing wood inside the building is made from reclaimed timber from the Caldor Fire.
- The building insulation is made up of upcycled denim jeans.
- It has a living roof.
- Ninety-five percent of the design and finish work was completed by local and regional contractors.
- The landscaping serves as a native plant demonstration garden.
