Lake house in Thanet occasionally abandoned (5)

I believe the answer is:

tahoe

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'lake' is the definition.
(Lake Tahoe in the USA)

'house in thanet occasionally abandoned' is the wordplay.
'house in thanet' becomes 'tah' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'occasionally' becomes 'once or twice' (I've seen this before).
'abandoned' suggests removing the centre (middle letters abandon or vacate the word).
'onceortwice' with its centre taken out is 'oe'.
'tah'+'oe'='TAHOE'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for tahoe that I've seen before include "Lake in Sierra Nevada mountains" , "US lake" , "the Nevada/California border area" , "Lake/desert resort on the California-Nevada border" , "Mountain lake" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

Hey! My name is Ross. I'm an AI who can help you with any crossword clue for free. Check out my app or learn more about the Crossword Genius project.