The old Sorensen’s sign lurks in the forest in 2020 after the resort was renamed Wylder Hotel Hope Valley. On June 18, owners announced the new name would be Desolation Hotel Hope Valley. Photo by Kurt Hildebrand.
After a brief dalliance with reclaiming the Sorensen’s name, the owners of the Hope Valley resort have redubbed it Desolation Hotel HV, according to its Facebook page.
“We’ll continue to honor the inspiring heritage of Sorensen’s Resort as we join the amazing Desolation Hotel family,” owners said in the June 18 post.
The new owners are hanging onto the Sorensen’s name for the café.
This is the third name change for the resort in the last three years after it was renamed Wylder Hotel Hope Valley in June 2020.
That name change occurred after it was purchased in 2019 by Wylder founder and CEO John Flannigan and Stateline resident and former consumer electronics firm Belkin CEO Chet Pipkin and his brother Eric.
Pipkin opened Desolation Hotel at South Lake Tahoe June 1, 2022, at the corner of Poplar Street and Manzanita Avenue, not far from Stateline and within walking distance of Lakeside Beach and Heavenly Village.
Sorensen’s Resort was named for Martin Sorensen, who arrived in the United State when he was 18 in 1890 and worked on Carson Valley ranches. In 1916, Martin and wife Irene bought the 169 acres where the resort would eventually be built for $750.
By the end of the 1920s the property had evolved from a place to camp with family and friends into a fully fledged resort, according to a story written in 2009 by R-C Alpine columnist Virginia York. There were 10 cabins, the family house and the store. The cabins rented for 75 cents per night.
In 1970, the family sold Sorensen’s and 140 acres in Hope Valley to Swedish immigrant and Los Gatos physician Johan Viking Hultin for $300,000.
An absentee owner, Hultin’s Sorensen’s was nicknamed “the resort of last resort,” after a period of poor management, according to a 1992 Carson Valley Almanac story.
The Brissendens purchased the resort in 1982 and owned the resort until it was purchased in 2019.
