Stateline Country Club

The Stateline Country Club, just inside the state border in what is now Stateline, Nevada, started as a small cafe. Inside, visitors enjoying the early 1930s at Lake Tahoe could find a soda fountain bar and a few tables to enjoy a meal. There was a small room in the rear where a poker game started-up most nights, and next door there was provision for vacationers at Carl F. Tychsen's Stateline Market with a pair of gas pumps nearby.

To the rear of the Stateline Market, east of Clyde Beecher's Nevada Club 100 feet from the actual state line between California and Nevada, Carl's Place Bar & Club attracted an older crowd of visitors. (Carl's Place would become The Main Entrance Club in 1938, owned by Charles Silver and George "Frenchy" Perry, with a long canopy extending from the club down the alley to U.S. Highway 50 between the Stateline Market and the Nevada Club.)

When Nevada legalized gambling in 1931, Cal Custer, a long-time rum-runner from Southern California, purchased the club and expanded the operation to include a 21 table, tub-style craps game, and a dozen slot machines. The following summer, Cal expanded again, and by 1933, Nick Abelman of Reno and his partners Steve Pavlovich and Bert Riddick were very interested in the sixteen-acre property.

The partners talked Custer down from his $100,000 asking price to $84,000 and purchased the club and property. Abelman, always a stickler for providing a superior product, immediately spent $48,000 building an expansion that offered a large, hard-wood dance floor and a huge fireplace. In the back of the club under a row of chandeliers was a small stage where a band played every night.

The club offered dozens of slot machines, roulette, chuck-a-luck, faro, and 21. It prospered for years under the watchful eye of Steve Pavlovich, who managed the club most summers. Big-name entertainment was standard, and the club offered wonderful meals such as a crab cocktail, soup and a main course like "famous Louisiana frog legs," Idaho Trout," or a filet mignon, plus vegetables, potatoes, and a nice dessert for $2.50.

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