Squaw Valley is one of the largest and most popular ski resorts near Lake Tahoe, made famous as the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. But it’s also a thriving residential community with stunning mountaintop vistas at every turn and year-round activities.
The resort is active in the summer months with live concerts, numerous festivals, and plenty of opportunities for golfing, hiking, swimming, tennis, and horseback riding amid pristine Sierra landscapes.
Wintertime, however, is what put Squaw Valley on the map. The Squaw Valley ski resort includes 3,600 ski-able acres, 177 trails, and 30 chairlifts, rising from 6,200 feet above sea level at its base to 9,050 feet at the top of Granite Chief, the tallest of its six peaks.
Ski season runs from November through May, attracting 600,000 skiers a year.
The resort first opened in 1949 and attracted global attention in 1960 when it hosted the Winter Olympic Games. It was the first Winter Olympics to be televised live, making the games accessible to millions of viewers and showcasing the Sierra Nevada mountains and Lake Tahoe like never before.
Squaw Valley has grown considerably since then, and today includes nearly 750 single-family homes, including 15 subdivisions and several condominium complexes.
At the foot of the ski resort is The Village at Squaw Valley, a popular retail district with restaurants, shops, and bars in an atmosphere reminiscent of an Alpine village, complete with cobblestone streets and a central plaza. Additional shops are in Truckee, 12 miles to the north, and Tahoe City, eight miles to the southeast.
The first homes in the area were built in the 1950s, near the ski resort, with newer housing developments constructed farther east along Squaw Creek. Among the newer developments are six private communities: Squaw Summit, Hidden Lake, Homesites at Squaw Creek, Painted Rock, Squaw Creek Estates, and Creekside Estates.
Hotel and condo complexes include Resort at Squaw Creek, Squaw Valley Lodge, and The Village at Squaw Valley, together totaling 725 units, plus more than a dozen smaller condo complexes nearby.
The median sale price for single-family homes in Squaw Valley was $730,000 in November, down from $780,000 a year earlier, according to MLS data. For condos, the median sale price was $323,500, up from $309,000 a year earlier.
(Squaw Valley photo courtesy of Kevin Shorter, via Flickr.)