Hauserman Rental Group Celebrated 50 Years in Lake Tahoe (2016)

It all began . . .

. . . with a drive through Tahoe City in the early 1960s, when Dan and Joan Hauserman, noticed a “For Sale” sign in front of the old Lake Chalet Motel in the center of town. It was across the street from The Commons Beach, and truly the heart of Tahoe City. They had been in Tahoe for a few years by that point, but had not really settled in on what they wanted to do with their lives, so they figured what the hell, let’s buy a motel. That was just their style. They were energetic, savvy and willing to work their butts off to make it work.

Dan and Joan purchased the property then moved their five kids into the small three bedroom house next to the golf course and ran the motel for a few years while planning the next step. Then Joan got a brainchild based on her experience as a world class shopper. What Tahoe City really needed was a place to shop, and she and Dan decided to sell and rent real estate to make it happen. They had recently spent time in Europe so they developed the idea that the Cobblestone would look like a Bavarian mountain community complete with a clocktower.

In 1966, Dan and Joan built the first building of The Cobblestone, built a new home in Dollar Point, and had their sixth child. They also opened Hauserman Real Estate.

Hauserman Rental Group

From the beginning, Hauserman Real Estate was dedicated to providing vacation and long term rentals as well as sales. When Russ Baruh joined the company in 1976 and Dan Hauserman, Jr. came along a year later, sales agents did both rentals and sales. In 1982, it was decided that if there was a group of folks solely dedicated to working on rentals that the service would be better, and so it became Hauserman Rental Group, while the sales portion of the operation became Coldwell Banker Hauserman Real Estate. In 1986 Russ Baruh, Dan Hauserman and Tim Hauserman purchased both the sales and rental businesses from Dan and Joan Hauserman.

That same year the Rental Group faced an interesting challenge: Just before the President’s Holiday Week, a 12” Gas pipeline ruptured in the Truckee River leaving most of the North Tahoe area without gas for heating and cooking for several weeks. Due to a fear of freezing pipes, the Rental Group staff went out and turned off the water on every house on the program.

In 2001, Coldwell Banker purchased the sales portion of the business and Russ and Dan, who now each have spent almost 40 years in the business, continued to operate Hauserman Rental Group. Now several generations of homeowners and renters have turned to Hauserman Rental Group as the place to go for great vacation and long term rentals in North Tahoe.