Demolishing the Abandoned Lake Mead Lodge at Boulder Beach

Lake Mead National Recreation Area. NPS/Andrew Cattoir.

Lake Mead National Recreation Area used Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) funds to demolish the hazardous, abandoned Lake Mead Lodge at Boulder Beach (formerly the Hualapai Lodge), with its sidewalks, roads, parking and non-native plants, and to restore the natural desert landscape.

A lodge's life

A concessionaire built the lodge in 1941: an administrative building and two lodge buildings. A 1954 renovation added an annex and a swimming pool. In 2008 it closed as "non-mission critical", and it became a public safety risk; a partial demolition in 2017 boarded up the buildings and removed the pool.

The project

Boulder Beach is one of the park's two most visited destinations, in a park with more than 7.5 million recreation visits in 2021. The project:

• removes unstable, hazardous, vandalised buildings from a busy area, and a refuge for disease-carrying rodents and insects;
• ends the cost of repeatedly clearing and re-securing the buildings against trespassers, freeing money for new visitor experiences;
• reduces deferred maintenance and the park's human-made footprint;
• restores native desert landscaping, improves the views and opens the area to the public.

Demolition of the Lake Mead Lodge at Boulder Beach. NPS photo.

Status: substantially complete as of August 2022. More about Boulder Beach.

Sources

• National Park Service, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, "Lodge Resort Complex in Lake Mead National Recreation Area to be Demolished through GAOA Funding." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/gaoa-lake-mead-lodge-resort-complex.htm