INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Here in "Income Village"--just north of the highest-price private estate in the nation--billionaires are buying out millionaires, paying top dollar for prime Tahoe lakefront property and building their dream homes.
But the arrival of free-spending newcomers in this stunning mountain paradise has left less affluent neighbors with nightmarish tax bills.
And gated driveways, security lights and cameras at the big "trophy" homes--built after smaller, older houses were demolished--have changed the feel of a community where some longtime residents hadn't bothered to lock their doors.
Upscale beach homes owned by well-to-do people are nothing new in this town of about 9,000, on the east shore of one of the world's clearest and deepest high-altitude lakes.
But few anticipated the changes along the town's most exclusive street, Lakeshore Boulevard, that occurred as casino baron Steve Wynn, former junk-bond king Michael Milken and a firm headed by PeopleSoft Inc. chief David Duffield bought in.
They're the latest among a crowd of billionaires and near-billionaires to get homes here. Earlier arrivals include Milken colleague Warren Trepp, developer Kern Schumacher and construction magnate Les Busick. And that's not counting all the millionaires, newcomers and old-timers alike.
Trepp alone bought seven homes in 1987 and demolished them to build one 8,000-square-foot residence. Milken and Wynn arrived in 1993 and have lavish homes separated by Schumacher's estate.
Duffield's company has a small army of carpenters working on a huge granite-and-mahogany house. It's being built on the site of four older lakefront homes that were torn down. Those homes plus two adjacent homes cost more than $6 million. The company has spent millions more on other properties around town.
"I don't want to crab and complain, like an old mossback," said 73-year-old Mary Jane "Bill" Dewhurst, who lives in a lakefront home she and her late husband built in the 1950s.
"But everybody like me is unhappy with what's happening because it seems like the lake has lost its character." Dewhurst's parents were caretakers on a big Tahoe estate when she was born.
"There used to be a few millionaires on the lake," she said. "Now it seems like everyone's a millionaire--and the billionaires are buying them out."
The Dewhursts paid $10,000 for their lot in 1956. This year, Dewhurst says her property tax bill is nearly three times that. "But I'm going to try to stay here. I love it, and it's my home."
