Ritz-Carlton Highlands opening Dec. 9

TRUCKEE – The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe, appears and disappears repeatedly as four miles of road rise and wind through pine trees and beneath ski chairlifts.

The anticipation builds. A glimpse here, a glimpse there. At last, it comes into full view high on a Sierra Nevada slope, in all its mountain lodge magnificence.

The Ritz-Carlton, known throughout the world for its luxurious, high-end hotels and impeccable service – the company motto is "We are ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen" – comes to snow country just in time for holiday visitors.

The Ritz-Carlton Highlands opens Dec. 9, halfway up the mountain from the ski resort Northstar-at-Tahoe.

Its architecture was inspired by such classics as Yosemite's Ahwahnee Hotel, Timberline Lodge in Oregon and the long-gone Tahoe Tavern. Its look is rustic, but polished, as Ritz-Carlton properties tend to be.

It's a $300 million treehouse reimagined as a lodge-resort high in the Sierra.

At the hotel's heart is the tree's "trunk," a majestic, 55-foot-tall granite fireplace tower rising two stories inside the hotel. The wooden "branches" that radiate from the high, high ceiling are an abstraction of a leafless tree canopy.

"Literally, it is a part of the forest," says hotel spokesman Steven Holt.

Floor-to-ceiling windows offer striking views of the surrounding Sierra Nevada, its ski runs now blanketed in snow, and thousands of living century-old pine trees.

Seventy-five percent of the hotel is fed by natural light, which washes over cedar-plank and slate floors and a color scheme drawn from the red of Indian paintbrushes, the green of pine and yellow of wild roses.

Only in hallways connecting the 170 guest rooms does it begins to feel like a hotel.

"People here definitely are talking about the Ritz- Carlton," says Mark Brown, a chiropractor and mayor of Truckee, an Old West town that grew up in the 1860s when the transcontinental railroad came through. "Because it's high in the mountains, a lot of us haven't been able to see it yet, but when the doors open, I'm sure we'll say, 'Oh, my goodness.' "

"There is just … a big buzz about the hotel and the grand opening," says Pam Hobday, who owns a management-consultant business in Truckee. "We're all very excited about the economic opportunity for our region."

The hotel already has proved an economic boon to the area, with about 1,150 people employed since its inception five years ago, and another 300, many residing in the immediate area, who will work for the Ritz- Carlton Highlands.

The hotel is a 15-minute drive from both Truckee and Lake Tahoe, and is accessible by a new four-mile road off Highway 267.

"I think they have chosen the most exquisite place to put the hotel," Brown says. "I've skied that area for many years and enjoyed the scenic views. It's breathtaking. And I like that it's close to our historic downtown district in Truckee, because tourists can see the old – and the new."

The Ritz-Carlton will be the Sierra Nevada's swankiest hostelry, completed on time and on budget.

According to the company's history, the first Ritz-Carlton opened in Boston in 1927. The room rate was $15 a night.

The hotel's strictly enforced dress code was a nod to Boston high society. For many years, women weren't allowed to dine alone in the cafe and couldn't visit the bar without a male escort until 1970.

Big band leaders Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman played The Roof at the Ritz-Carlton. The hotel also claimed Tennessee Williams wrote some of "A Streetcar Named Desire" while a guest there, that Richard Rodgers wrote "Ten Cents a Dance" in one of the suites, and Oscar Hammerstein wrote "Edelweiss" while in the shower.

Hotel employees who attend the company's leadership classes learn about "Ritz-Carlton style," which focuses on the elements of delivering "excellent customer service." The chain has twice won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, named for the former commerce secretary and established in 1987 by Congress to recognize accomplished U.S. businesses.