Wynn Las Vegas
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This US$2.7 billion resort is named after casino developer Steve Wynn and is the flagship property of Wynn Resorts Limited.
Wynn Las Vegas is one of the tallest buildings in Las Vegas, towering 50 stories over the Strip. It is located at Las Vegas Boulevard South and Sands Avenue, across from the Fashion Show Mall.
The site was assembled by buying the Desert Inn Hotel and Golf course for most of the land. The remainder was acquired by purchasing private residences that were generally located along Paradise Avenue. While some owners sold early on, others held out. This resulted in numerous legal actions between the various parties. In the end, the site acquired totaled 215 acres (870,000 m²).
Wynn Las Vegas LLC contracted with Marnell Corrao Associates on June 4, 2002 to design and build Le Rêve.
The historic Desert Inn Golf Course was rebuilt while the hotel was being constructed. The new course, the only one on the Las Vegas Strip, was designed by Steve Wynn and Tom Fazio, who previously worked together on the Shadow Creek Golf Club, also in Las Vegas. Called the "Wynn Golf and Country Club", use of the course is restricted to hotel guests at a cost of $500 per round.
The initial commercial for the hotel aired in some local spots during the 2005 Super Bowl. The commercial stands out in that Wynn stood atop the edge of his tall building (with a helicopter a few feet away).
Wynn Las Vegas opened on April 28, 2005, Wynn's wife's birthday.
In a departure from the previous trend of providing free sidewalk attractions to draw in customers, the Wynn Las Vegas is constructed so that visitors must enter the site to view the free attractions. The main feature is large, flat waterfall behind a mountain, running into a small 3 acre (12,000 m²) lake, both of which have images displayed on them to produce a unique show on the hour, every hour, starting in the afternoon.
The resort has on display much of Wynn's considerable art collection, which has been displayed at the Bellagio. The collection, which focuses primarily on 19th and 20th-century works by European and American artists, includes masterpieces by Édouard Manet, Andy Warhol, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gauguin, among others. The centerpiece of the collection is Le Rêve, the Pablo Picasso portrait that was the working name of the resort project. Wynn reportedly purchased the painting for $42 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a Picasso. The collection was on display at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno while the Wynn Las Vegas was being constructed and was installed in the resort shortly before it was opened.
The property features 26 retail outlets in 76,000 square feet (7,000 m²) of space, one of which is a Ferrari-Maserati dealership, an art gallery, and two wedding chapels. There are also 18 restaurants and bars.
Nightclubs are an important part of the resort, as are theaters housing several production shows.
The first production show, entitled Le Rêve, is set in a 1 million gallon water-oriented theatre where no seat is more than 40 feet (12 m) from the stage. This production, was created by Franco Dragone and is similar to the shows produced by Cirque du Soleil.
The second production show is Avenue Q, a puppet and people musical which enjoyed considerable success on Broadway. It debuted on September 8, 2005 in the 1,200 seat Broadway Theatre.
A third theater will be built to house a Las Vegas production of Spamalot, a Tony Award-winning comedic musical based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, scheduled to open in 2007.
Wynn purchased the Desert Inn hotel and casino to obtain property for his future dreams. The Desert Inn was imploded to make room for his new hotel project. Along the way, Wynn Resorts Limited was formed and continued development with Wynn being the controlling stock holder.
Wynn has stated that the major shift with this new resort is the concept of designing from the "inside out." In contrast to his previous hotels Bellagio, The Mirage, and Treasure Island there is no Las Vegas Strip attraction to draw in the gawkers. Instead, visitors must venture inside to see what the hotel is all about. Wynn has said that "there is no franchise in a casual observer, there is a franchise in a guest."
