Check out this new vision of Mount Charleston lodge

Plans to rebuild the Mount Charleston Lodge are still in the works, more than a year after an accidental fire destroyed the lodge.

Artist renderings of possible site plans were shared with Mount Charleston residents, during a meeting last week. Officials with Ellis Island, which owns the lodge along with the Village Pub chain and Ellis Island Hotel and Casino, declined to specify details about the renderings or other possible plans.

“For the past year, we have been working on our plans to re-establish the Mt. Charleston Lodge. This past week we shared our vision including conceptual plans and renderings with the Mt. Charleston community. We are at the initial stages of this process and we look forward to working with the community and Clark County to re-establish the Mt. Charleston Lodge,” Christina Ellis, Ellis Island’s vice president of development, said in a statement.

The mountain eatery hasn’t been completely void of activity since the September 2021 fire. Lodge officials erected a temporary tent structure where the A-frame building once stood, and hosted several pop-up events like the Pine Dining series, where local chefs created special menus for summer “cookouts” and a week of harvest-inspired food in October.

The company is seeking a use expansion on the temporary structure, according to a Tuesday agenda from the Clark County Planning Commission. The fabric and glass-walled tent has a maximum capacity of 250 people and would be used to host more chef events, special meal services, weddings and other private events.

Currently, it’s only allowed to host outdoor commercial events for no more than 10 consecutive days per month at the temporary structure.

“This request is to allow various events on the site, without the limitation of the number of events and the number of days per event. This is well in effect to establish an event facility,” according to the filed request.

An accidental fire destroyed the lodge restaurant on Sept. 17, leaving rubble in place of the iconic A-frame restaurant. No one was injured. The lodge’s neighboring 23 cabins were unaffected by the fire and remain open.

The former lodge was built in 1962, though another structure operated there from at least 1948 before it was destroyed in a 1961 fire.

McKenna Ross is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Contact her at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on Twitter.