Nevada

York Beach Nevada motel reborn: Iconic landmark reopens with modern makeover

Published

1 year ago

July 18, 2024

York Beach Nevada motel reborn: Iconic landmark reopens with modern makeover

YORK, Maine — Joe Lipton walked along his newly renovated Nevada Motel with its third-story addition as a neighbor called from her deck to give him well wishes.

“It’s been great, everybody’s happy,” Lipton yells back to the woman, who hollered in response she has “watched the whole process” of revitalizing the 1950s-era motel.

“That’s what it’s been like this whole time,” Lipton said, having just completed the project after two years of planning and construction. “Everybody walking by, so happy we did what we did.”

The Nevada’s website went live Monday, offering 21 rooms overlooking Long Sands Beach. The motel includes York’s newest tiki restaurant, Lulu’s, which will soon be open to more than just hotel guests.

The project brings the original Nevada Motel back to life after it was sold by the family of its original owner, Henry de la Pena, who opened the hotel in 1951. Lipton and his wife, Michelle Friar, maintained the building’s shape, imitating the flybridge of a battleship like the one on which de la Pena served.

More: York lifeguard chief says police won’t stop beach drinking, threatens to resign

What’s new at the Nevada Motel at Long Sands Beach?

New are the modern amenities added by Lipton and Friar, as well as a raising of the first floor and a new interior for access to the second and third-floor rooms rather from the outside like a traditional motel. Rooms have also been made more spacious because of the third-story expansion, allowing each unit to be bumped out to more square footage. The room count was also reduced by two to make those units more spacious.

The hallways of the Nevada feature acrylic and digital artwork from two local artists, as well as music and lighting. The front lawn of the motel was once open grass and now features gardens, outdoor dining and steps to guests’ rooms.

The Nevada will feature a shuttle service exclusively for guests to the ViewPoint Hotel, also owned by Lipton and Friar, on Nubble Road so guests can enjoy the outdoor restaurant A Little Auk. Those staying at the ViewPoint will also have access to the shuttle to get to the Nevada, which is only a short walk from the couple’s third hotel and restaurant, Stones Throw.

Lipton said the project at the Nevada was about revitalizing one of Long Sands Beach’s iconic structures and preventing it from being turned into residential units.

“Keeping the feeling of the Nevada and giving it a rebirth,” Lipton said, “And not doing something like condos.”

A Sweet spot: New candy shop opens at York Beach

Nevada Motel revitalized with new Tiki Restaurant

The restaurant Lulu’s, named for Lipton and Friar’s daughter Lucy and her childhood nickname, features Mexican and Polynesian food. Tiki-style restaurants and décor became popular in the 1950s, and Lipton said the Pacific Rim theme went well with the Nevada’s naval element.

Lulu’s focuses less on imagery like native tiki masks and more on the connection between food and nature. On the menu is a raw bar with ceviche, rice and noodle bowls and al pastor – pork cooked vertically, rotating underneath a pineapple from which juice flows down.

Lipton said Lulu’s is open to hotel guests but still needs approval from the Planning Board to be open to the public. Lipton is seeking that approval, but in the meantime, he said he is giving out one-day complimentary guest passes so visitors can get a taste of Lulu’s.

“We can give people a day pass, and now they’re guests of the hotel,” Lipton said, “And they can come in and enjoy the restaurant.”

What’s next for Nevada owners?

Now having three hotels with accompanying restaurants, Lipton and Friar say they plan to take a break from new projects for at least one year to enjoy what they’ve accomplished. They said they still intend to finish the spa at the ViewPoint this year, featuring a hot tub, sauna, cold plunge, fire pits, couples massages and treatments. That project will be completed by late August or early September, Lipton said.

Lipton and Friar say they have focused on projects they thought would not only be successful but also places they would hang out themselves. Lipton said he does not know what opportunity will present itself next, but he said he has been motivated to open businesses that add to the community where he has lived since he was 8 years old.

“Our look at doing things is, what are we creating in the community that’s going to be here after we’re gone,” Lipton said. “This is our form of art. This is how we express ourselves, and then people can enjoy it.”

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Nevada

DOJ sues Nevada for allegedly withholding voter registration information

Published

12 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

DOJ sues Nevada for allegedly withholding voter registration information

The Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against Nevada on Friday, alleging that the state failed to provide statewide voter registration lists when requested, according to a news release.

Colorado, Hawaii, and Massachusetts were also sued, bringing the total to 18 states now facing lawsuits from the Justice Department. The department’s Civil Rights Division filed the complaints.

Francisco Aguilar, Nevada secretary of state, was charged with violating the Civil Rights Act after he responded on Aug. 21 to a letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying there was no basis for her request for certain voter information, asserting privacy concerns, according to the lawsuit.

According to the complaint, Aguilar provided a link to the state’s computerized voter registration list. However, the version shared contained incomplete fields, including registrants’ full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

Aguilar’s Aug. 21 letter said his office would follow up, but the attorney general never received the list containing all the requested fields, the lawsuit said.

According to the news release, Congress assigns the attorney general primary responsibility for enforcing the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, both enacted to ensure that states maintain accurate and effective voter registration systems.

The attorney general also has authority under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to request, review, and analyze statewide voter registration lists, according to the release.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in the release. “At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.

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Nevada

Police: Deadly crash closes all lanes at I-15, Charleston

Published

24 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Police: Deadly crash closes all lanes at I-15, Charleston

LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — A deadly crash has closed all lanes at I-15 and Charleston Boulevard, police say.

Nevada State Police posted on social media after 7 p.m. about the crash. Police say drivers in the area should use other routes.

Police have not immediately shared details about the victim or if other people are involved. It’s not yet confirmed if impairment is suspected.

This is a developing story. Check back later for details.

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Nevada

Top Interior Department official has ties to Thacker Pass lithium mine – High Country News

Published

2 days ago

December 11, 2025

Press Room

Top Interior Department official has ties to Thacker Pass lithium mine – High Country News

This story was co-published with Public Domain.

Karen Budd-Falen, a top official at the Department of Interior, has financial ties to the controversial Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada — a project that the Trump administration worked to fast-track during its first term. In recent months, the administration took an equity stake in the mine and the mine’s parent company.

After an unexplained delay, Public Domain and High Country News obtained Budd-Falen’s financial disclosure earlier this month, which details her family’s extensive land holdings. Among them is Home Ranch LLC, a Nevada ranching operation valued at over $1 million. Nevada’s business search database shows a Home Ranch LLC that listed Frank Falen as the manager in February 2022. Frank Falen is also the name of Karen Budd Falen’s husband.

Karen Budd-Falen, senior partner at Budd-Falen Law Offices LLC, speaks at the 2024 Western Ag and Environmental Law Conference. Budd-Falen is a top official at the Interior Department. Credit: uacescomm / CC via Flickr

In November 2018, not long after Karen Budd-Falen joined the first Trump administration as a top legal official at the Interior Department, Home Ranch LLC agreed to sell water rights to Lithium Nevada Corporation, the company developing the Thacker Pass mine, for an undisclosed amount of money, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Frank Falen is listed on the document.

A Home Ranch also appears in planning documents that Lithium Nevada submitted to federal regulators during Trump’s first term. A monitoring plan for Thacker Pass, dated July 2021, notes that the company intended to use existing stock water wells owned by Home Ranch LLC to “monitor potential drawdown impacts” from its mining operations.

The water purchase agreement and other records raise questions about potential conflicts of interest. Budd-Falen was appointed in March as associate deputy secretary to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — a position that does not require Senate confirmation. She also served as a high-ranking legal official at the Interior Department during President Trump’s first term.

It was during that earlier government stint that her official calendar lists a November 6, 2019 meeting in which Budd-Falen was scheduled to have “lunch with Lithium Nevada.”

In 2019, Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining firm Lithium Americas, was seeking speedy approval for its Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada. In the waning days of the first Trump administration it received just that. In January 2021, the Bureau of Land Management approved the mine project, which includes some 5,700 acres of public land.

The $2.2 billion, open-pit mine project has drawn fierce opposition from area tribes and environmentalists, who argue it threatens water resources, endangered species and sacred cultural sites. Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh to the Paiute Shoshone people, was the site of an 1865 massacre of at least 31 Paiute people.

Budd-Falen was being considered to lead the BLM during Trump’s first term, but turned down the director job when she learned that she and her husband would have to sell their interests in their family ranches to avoid conflicts of interest, she told The Fence Post in 2018.

Since returning to power, Trump and his team have again worked to move the project forward, as part of a broader push to boost critical mineral mining in the U.S. In September, the Trump administration struck a deal with Lithium Americas to take a 5% equity stake in both the Thacker Pass mine and the company, in exchange for the release of loan money from the Department of Energy.

Budd-Falen has largely worked behind the scenes at the Interior Department. Little is known about what issues she has focused on since returning to the sprawling agency. Notably, Interior officials have yet to release her ethics agreement, which would detail any companies or projects that are off limits.

“Did she have any oversight of the environmental review process regarding Thacker Pass? It is a big question,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, a water conservation group in Nevada. “If she didn’t recuse herself, it would fly in the face of the impartial decisionmaking that Americans expect from government officials.”