There's no outlet at the lakefront and no ballroom to fall back on: a reunion, a wedding or a company dinner here happens outdoors, in a state park. I bring the power, the sound, the microphone and the timeline, so the event runs and you get to be in it.
Most people call it the Ehrman Mansion. Officially it's the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion, and it started life as Pine Lodge: a three-story summer house built in 1903 for a San Francisco banker, out of granite from Meeks Bay and lumber from Hobart Mills. It sits on a knoll above the lake in Tahoma, on the west shore of Lake Tahoe, about 10 miles south of Tahoe City on Highway 89.
The family kept it until the state bought the estate in 1965. Today it belongs to Ed Z'berg Sugar Pine Point State Park. By day it's a historic house museum with public tours. Once the visitors thin out, it's an event site. It went on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
That changes how an event works. The park stays open to the public, vendor arrivals are scheduled, and the rules belong to California State Parks, not to me or to you. The ceremony site and the reception lawn are two separate places. Nothing gets staked into the lawn or attached to a tree. Sound has its own rules too (more on that below). I plan for all of it long before you arrive.
State Parks calls this the Ceremony Site: a spot on the shoreline framed by tall trees, about 530 yards from the parking lot on the paved Lakefront Interpretive Trail. No power here. I bring a compact ceremony setup with its own power: one speaker aimed at your guests and a wireless mic for the officiant and the vows.
The park's Reception Site: the flat lawn on the mansion's north corner, between the gazebo, the flower bed and the stone house. Dinner and dancing happen here. Outlets sit at the gazebo and beside the mansion, and the park recommends a backup generator.
Stone and timber, looking at the lake, and often used for cocktail hour between the ceremony and dinner. It opens for setup once the last public tour of the day, the 3:30 p.m. one, has gone into the house. Music here stays at talking level, and it may call for an additional sound zone.
A rustic wooden gazebo beside the lawn. It's a backdrop and a landmark, and it has an outlet vendors can use, so it helps decide where my table can go.
A small historic cabin with two getting-ready rooms. It needs no sound, but it tells me where you're walking from, and that's how I time the processional cue.
No outlet at the water, two separate sites, no walls, and a park that keeps quiet hours.
The lakefront site has no electricity, and the park's own advice is a small generator for audio. So power goes on my list, not yours. I ask the park what kind it allows and when it can run, and the ceremony or the welcome at the water gets a speaker and a wireless mic that don't depend on an outlet.
Ceremony and reception are two separate sites, so I build them as two separate systems. The setup window is tight: the park opens the grounds to an event at 2:30 p.m., its example timeline gives the DJ access from 2:45 p.m., and most ceremonies here start at 5 p.m. (4:30 p.m. at the earliest). I unload, move my vehicle back to the parking lot the way the park asks every vendor to, and build in a set order, so the lawn rig is set and tested before the ceremony starts. When your guests come up from the water, music is already playing and nobody waits on me carrying a speaker.
The reception lawn sits between the gazebo, the flower bed and a granite house, with no walls to hold sound in and a park that stays open to the public. I aim the speakers at your guests, not the pines. Porch music stays at talking level, dinner stays easy to talk over, and I build as the plates clear.
I plan the timeline to the end time you choose. The park's limits are already in my plan: amplified music needs a State Parks permit, and the park's example timeline for an event here has the music turned down at 9:55 p.m. and off by 10 p.m. at the latest, when its quiet hours begin. The big moments land early, the dance floor gets its full stretch, and the last song is the one you chose.
A state park hands you a rulebook and a schedule. Somebody has to read both, and it shouldn't be you. The park recommends vendors who have worked the site before, and I have. Before the event you get a planning questionnaire, planning and music calls, and a place to put your must-plays and do-not-plays. By the time I arrive, I already know your event inside and out.
On the day I'm the MC as well as the DJ. I move guests from the shoreline to the porch to dinner, cue every entrance and toast, and keep the clock so you never look at one. I'm there early, with backup equipment within reach. And at the end of the night I remind everyone that the path back to the parking lot is dark (it is).
The uplighting in these photos is mine. Purple light on the stone tower and the round turret, warm windows behind it, string lights over the tables. Once it's dark, the house is the backdrop for everything, and light is what keeps it in the picture.
Uplights stand on the ground and attach to nothing, which matters in a park where nothing may be fixed to the buildings or the trees. I confirm placement with the park. Uplighting, dance-floor lighting and a monogram or pattern projection are add-ons you choose in the instant estimate.
Family reunions, corporate dinners, farm-to-table dinners, music events and festivals all happen here, and I play those too. A company dinner with a toast and a short dance set. A milestone birthday. A fundraiser where the microphone matters more than the dance floor.
For a host who wants a sound more than a program, a Selector Session fits the porch at cocktail hour or a welcome party on the lawn. And the lakefront, which the park itself describes as suited to unplugged performances, is a natural place to begin the Journey: a live sound bath that flows into a facilitated ecstatic dance.
Clubs, festival stages and every venue from Napa Valley to the coast are on one page: Places I've played.
Your date, the kind of event and the feeling you want on that lawn. The instant estimate gives you a price in a couple of minutes, or book a short call and I'll take it from there.
