Meet the Four Best Friends Who Took a Leap of Faith and Bought a Vacation Home Together

From L to R: Charles Kerl, Steven Guilliams, Malcolm Bowles, and Justin (Vinny) Vinluan — with pups Huck, Jockamo, and Bondi. Photo: Alpine Chalet Co.

After years of renting a small cabin in Alpine Meadows near Lake Tahoe, a group of four friends grew tired of co-managing a lease and set out in search of something to call their own. In March of 2021, a friend tipped them off that a large home had come on the market, just down the road from the A-frame they used to rent.

After a couple of weeks of late nights, tough decisions, minor disasters, and lucky breaks, they were able to renovate the home just in time for their first guests in early June. Today, the ski chalet is accurately named Bearadise and is thriving as a joint venture. Read on to discover how they’ve juggled daily operations as a team, created a cohesive design and continue to have fun together along the way.

How did Bearadise come to be?

We are a group of friends, all avid skiers and boarders, who had shared a ski lease in Alpine Meadows, CA, for years. A few of us would rent a ski cabin from the landlord; then, we’d sublet to a larger group and share the place for four months during ski season. Some ski leases are pretty impersonal, but we only recruited friends-of-friends. We cooked dinners together and skied together during the day. We’ve grown a lot closer through managing these ski leases together, but we hadn’t thought about going into business together. 

This spring, a friend and ski lease member told us about a house going on the market just down the street from our lease. Tahoe real estate is often expensive and hard to come by, so we were interested in the opportunity. The place was... unique. The seller was selling it as-is: lots of stuff everywhere, several issues to address before we’d be able to rent it, furniture, decor, everything. Well, you know by now that we went for it. It’s been way more work than we could have imagined, but we closed in late May 2021 and welcomed our first guests in early June.

As for the name, we are right on Bear Creek, and our former landlord called us the gentlemen of Bear Creek, so when we formed our LLC, we were Bear Unlimited. After spending some time in the chalet, we realized that it was, indeed, Bearadise.

When did you and your friends decide to co-host together? Who has ownership of what tasks in the day-to-day operations?

This has been a bit of a build-it-as-we-fly-it experience, and we’ve had to develop processes that allow autonomy, while also providing responsive and thorough service to our guests. We’ve also had to learn about each others’ strengths and availability. We come from different industries and backgrounds, and our jobs have widely different demands. Some of us can field calls during the day, while others are unavailable for hours at a time.

Overall, this means that we all wear a lot of hats and have an excellent on-call rotation for handling the guest phone line. It’s somewhat of a joke (but not entirely untrue) that Charles handles finance, Steve manages facilities, Malcolm is on operations, and Vinny does events.

What are your favorite aspects of the property? Do you have a favorite room?

Vinny: I think mine is the dining room. It was just super inviting the first time we all walked in — impressive and overlooking Bear Creek. It brings a center to the whole space and is a great space for groups to gather. And I love the fireplace room because it gets so cozy and warm in there.

Charles: My favorite room is the hot tub. No, like the actual hot tub. Can we call that a room? It’s got a cute mountain view, and it’s big, private, and comfortable. It has a very embodied in-nature feel to it. My second favorite room is Sugar Bowl, the big room downstairs because it’s fun sleeping in a room with a queen bed and an XL-twin bunk bed because you can be there with your buds. Like a bit of a bunk room.

Malcolm: My favorite room is Alpine. It’s the only bedroom on the main floor, and it gets the most beautiful morning light through its floor-to-ceiling window. The whole room glows, and it’s a calming place to wake up. I spray painted the lamps turquoise — they were bought with the house, some horrible mottled bronze color — and replaced the dingy silk shades with black drum shades lined in a reflective gold foil. They turned out well, adding some contrast and interest. I think that project gave us a bit of encouragement early on to update and modernize, add some color, and do it ourselves.

The Alpine bedroom at Bearadise. Photo: Alpine Chalet Co.

Your home has a calming hygge design. Do you have any design tips for first-time hosts?

Charles: My design tip for first-time hosts is regarding the flooring. On the main floor, we had the original artificial hardwood flooring, and then we had old messed-up carpet and a bunch of it at that! We did the simple thing: ripped up all the carpet and bought more of the same original flooring. That made it a lot easier to redo an entire floor of the house with consistent design, and it just made the whole design process more manageable. 

I also like that we kept pieces from when we bought the house, like the ski maps. The previous owner had ski maps tacked to the walls on the way downstairs, and they were all dirty and torn up at the edges where people had brushed against them. So we had all these gross, torn-up, old ski maps, but there were some treasures in there. Instead of just throwing it all away and buying new stuff, we kept the nice maps and framed them and kind of went with it. That keeps the story and the life of the house going.

Malcolm: I think everything starts with the lighting because it is so central to our enjoyment of a space. We knew we wanted to create a space that was restful, warm, and hygge, so immediately I knew we had to change some of the fixtures, especially in the main living spaces, where guests would spend a lot of time. The chandelier over the dining table is so central to the home, and what was there was just dreadful: a Home Depot faux-Tuscan fixture with completely mismatched fluorescent and LED bulbs in frosted-glass fluted cups. Yikes. Swapping that for a Nelson saucer bubble pendant with a dimmer and soft-white LED bulbs had a significant impact. 

Oh, and here’s a tip: dimmer switches everywhere! I knew we wanted warm white LED lights for the other fixtures, so I gathered all the lamps in the house and repaired the ones we chose to keep, added new shades and finials, and placed them thoughtfully in the spaces. We’ve added lamps here and there, mixing them with the old, and I think the effect is very welcoming. I took one cue from the original globe fixtures in the house for the sconces. I restored the old sconces and moved them around a bit, and we purchased new globe sconces that match the others. The frosted glass globes have become a bit of a theme and I’m not mad about it. They give off a lovely light, and it gave me a foothold for making design decisions. Once I understood, “Ok, 70’s ski chalet—sort of retro but also updated, nostalgic and groovy, but with some bold, modern colors,” it helped me out. Even though it was incomplete, having a working vision and some style references was all I needed to keep going and follow new design inspirations, while maintaining a unified feel.

What do you do for guests that sets you apart from the rest?

Malcolm: We provide guests with access to our community park. They can use the grills and tennis courts, play bocce, or swim in a mountain-stream-fed swimming pond. Guests love it!

Steve: You know, I don’t know that every property does the blogging and resource-sharing that you’ve spearheaded, Malcolm. We have a blog, Guide to North Lake Tahoe and feature our local partners and recommendations on our website. I think it’s an excellent resource for people, with a local guide and custom recommendations. And we have a trusted inspector, Julia, who makes sure that we don’t mess things up. We have a multi-stage inspection process to reset the property between guests, keeping it clean and cozy.

Vinny: I even think that the property itself sets us apart. It’s a large space that can accommodate groups of people who haven’t been able to see each other out of necessity during COVID times. We have eight parking spaces, which is unheard of in Tahoe, so we have room to accommodate a huge number of people.

Malcolm: And we love dogs!

Steve: The whole family can come.

Vinny: And four toilets are a lot for Tahoe houses!

Steve: And our Green Business Certification, which the bidets reminded me of.

Vinny: Love the bidets! The heated seat keeps your booty warm at night. And we have two water heaters, so there will always be hot water, which is pretty important in a 20-person house!

Malcolm: I think guests also benefit from our commitment to green practices and sustainable travel. We worked hard for our CA Green Business certification, and we make choices to conserve resources and sustain wilderness areas. We have a contractor installing solar on the roof; we buy luxurious toiletries in bulk and use dispensers in the showers; we use high-quality post-consumer recycled products, provide information on transit in the region, and encourage guests to take the Sustainable Travel Pledge. 

We’re also members of the local chambers of commerce, the Lake Tahoe Bicycle Coalition, and the Better Business Bureau. All that helps us be a part of the local community and helps guests place their trust in us—it says we will be honest and handle their sensitive data with care.

There’s no bad time to get cozy by the fire. Photo: Alpine Chalet Co.

Do you have any funny stories/silly mistakes to share from your time hosting?

Malcolm: What about the bear story? 

Steve: The bear is a good dramatic story! Between us hosting guests, a bear climbed in through the window of one of our downstairs bedrooms. The bedroom door was closed, so it just left the way it came, but we were pretty lucky.

Charles: Our cleaner FaceTimed me right after! She told me about the bear, showing me the blinds torn down, the scratches on the wall, some damage to the bedding. We learned that you have to really reinforce with guests the importance of locking up the house after they leave, especially during the active bear season.

Do you have any insider tips on the business side of running a short-term rental property? Any software tools you like to use?

Charles: We use Xero for our accounting, and I like it. It’s simple, but has all the tools we need for expenses and reporting.

Malcolm: I researched a lot of different property management software before we decided to go with OwnerRez, and I am so glad we did. Their customer service is incredibly helpful and robust. As for the software itself, although it doesn’t look like much, it’s really powerful and versatile. It has made guest communication more straightforward, handles direct booking, and is the backbone of our operations. And choosing to use PriceLabs was a great move. Now we don’t have to think about pricing, and we have learned to relax and have faith in the algorithm.

We also rely on Stripe’s Identity module for guest ID verification, and I had a programmer friend design a verification portal for our website. Our website is built on Squarespace, and I use Photoshop (with the Web Sharp Pro plugin) for getting photos ready for the web. Canva is great for making signs and graphics, like the ones we have for checkout instructions and QR codes to join the wifi. We use StayFi to capture guest emails, Mailchimp for our email list, Folio for our online guidebook, and Safely for our short- term rental coverage during guest stays.

Google Workspace (formerly GSuite) has been essential—I think I signed us up for it on day one of our LLC’s existence. We use it for email, calendars, and domain administration. The shared drives have been so helpful for coordinating work and ensuring access to crucial business documents. Since we’re a team of co-owners, we also use the business features in Google Voice for our phone tree. For surprisingly little money, we have a single phone number that greets people in English or Spanish, transfers callers to any of us, and allows us to update our on-call number depending on who’s on that week.

Describe your perfect day in North Lake Tahoe!

Charles: A morning of skiing, an afternoon of sitting on the beach and getting a little sun (in April, I guess.) An evening playing blackjack at the Cal-Neva on Stateline Road, then coming home and falling asleep on the floor next to the fireplace.

Vinny: Skiing in the morning, then snacks and warm drinks over lunch, hanging out near the fire or at Le Chamois for some après-ski, then a little nap. In the evening, we’d join up for a group dinner, then some drinks and hot tub.

Steve: North Tahoe is all about the nature, so depending on the season, either a summer hike or a day on the slopes skiing. Not surprisingly, we have a lot of overlap alignment around spending time in our beautiful hot tub, looking at the creek, forest, and mountains, and sharing a big, delicious dinner around our fabulous twenty-person dining room table.

Malcolm: A day spent outdoors, skiing or hiking, with a to-go lunch of leftovers or a sandwich from Wild Cherries in Truckee, an afternoon doing some errands, getting some fresh veg for dinner at New Moon Natural Foods. Maybe having a coffee or a pint in town, then cooking, dining, and laughing with friends, before cozying up in bed.

Experience the magic of Bearadise for yourself and book your next getaway on their booking site. You can read more host stories for additional inspiration on making your short-term rental the top pick for guests.