On the morning of April 25, 1996, Mount Charleston Restaurant Lodge owners Collie and Barbara Orcutt awoke to find the property swarming with 30 IRS officers and special agents. They’d come to seize the property as a lien against $372,457.03 in back taxes. "By 2 p.m., the IRS officers had created an inventory of all property and began auctioning off the perishable food and the lodge’s seven horses to the highest bidders," reported the Las Vegas Sun. The Orcutts had fallen pretty far behind on their paperwork and the revenue men were enforcing liens from 1992, 1994, and 1996 for a variety of arrearages, including failure to pay $59,200 in personal income taxes.
The IRS characterized the seizure as a gesture of last resort, saying it preferred to work out payment schedules with delinquent taxpayers. The Orcutts were faced with the loss of a dream of a lifetime: They had first visited the Lodge as honeymooners in 1974 and bought the property on an impulse. "From the hotel, we saw the snow on Mount Charleston, rented a car and went up to the mountain. We fell in love with the area and thought it would be an excellent place to raise children," Barbara Orcutt said. They sold it in 1980 but repurchased it in 1982 when it was up for grabs in a Chapter 11 proceeding. The Orcutts went through a Chapter 11 of their own in 1986 but managed to hang onto the Lodge.
Although the federal government had gotten into the business of being a brothel keeper when the Mustang Ranch was forfeited in 1990, it had no such plans for the Lodge. An IRS spokeswoman said, "Can you imagine the liability when someone fell down on their skis? The plans are to sell it. When we seize, we will sell."
The incursion of the taxmen didn’t dampen the Orcutt’s entrepreneurial spirit. "We may be opening up real soon. I can’t make any promises," an employee told the Sun, "but [the Orcutts] didn’t sound too down about it." Indeed, within six days the Orcutts had scraped together the necessary capital and were back in business.
In 2004, Barbara Orcutt found herself at odds with the government again. She wanted the Spring Mountains National Recreational Area to reopen Soda Straw Cave (whose exact location was a closely guarded secret). "It’s history, and geology, and maybe it’s tourist worthy. We just want to see what’s there," she told the Sun. "It could be nothing." A park ranger replied that the cave, which had been plugged with concrete in 1965, was too unsafe for spelunkers, with a crack in the ceiling and cavities in the floor. The Lodge also ducked a brush wildfire that year, when a blaze on Fletcher’s peak forced a brief closure of the property.
In January 2005, the Orcutts were again forced to temporarily close the Lodge when Las Vegas Metro ordered Mount Charleston evacuated due to the danger of avalanches. "There was no arguing with them. They were nice about it, but they made it very clear that we needed to go," said Mrs. Orcutt. Adversity dogged the Orcutts that winter, with Collie Orcutt dying the following month.
In early 2006, Mrs. Orcutt found herself amidst controversy yet again, when a dispute arose over whether a gated community she was trying to create on Mount Charleston comprised six single-family residences (as Orcutt claimed) or 36 condominiums. Clark County Commissioner Chip Maxfield examined the plans and decided they were condos. "If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck," he told the Sun. Orcutt subsequently backpedaled and retrofitted to buildings to make them single-family residences. "We’re entitled to differences of opinions, but there’s nothing permanent. It’s a happy mountain," she said.
