ML - Vegas Magazine

2013 - Issue 2 - Spring

Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.

Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/109603

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 57 of 135

SPIRIT OF GENEROSITY continued from page 54 LARRY RUVO Senior Managing Director, Southern Wine and Spirits ���The prize was ���nothing,��� the bidding started at $5,000, and a bidding war began.��� The Frank Gehry���designed Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. 56 Bobby Baldwin credits the dedication of Larry Ruvo for the gala���s success. David Robins thinks Keep Memory Alive has boosted the city���s philanthropic sensibility. Tom Kaplan recalls Lou Ruvo treating his working-class customers like celebs. father���s, pushed to build the facility downtown. One hundred percent of the credit goes to Oscar for us moving to the 61-acre downtown site. Bobby���s input was very important in the beginning. He���s very intuitive about the concept of quality doctors. We had an original agreement to partner with the University of Nevada, Reno, and then several other institutions, before Cleveland Clinic was selected. Mike Milken, who is an extraordinary friend, would say, ���Countries come and go. Universities are forever.��� I don���t know if I���d have the Lou Ruvo Center open in Vegas without him. We knew that we had to have something that was so much better than anything that existed, had to make sure it had superb doctors, superb care. And in 2005, I made the decision that I needed a superstar celebrity architect. What you see standing is Frank Gehry���s design, 100 percent. He had the genius to create something that would startle the world of medicine. I learned subconsciously from Steve Wynn, my great personal friend for decades, that I had to build something unique. And at the end of the day, I���d not be where I am without Frank Gehry���s design. It did not cost me any more than a conventional design, and we ultimately benefitted because of his enormous support and the large number of Gehry fans from around the world who helped contribute to the continued on page 58 PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRYAN HAINER (ROBINS, KAPLAN), JEFF GALE (LOU RUVO CENTER), ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES FOR CITYCENTER (BALDWIN) One year after Dad died, some family and friends of his said, ���Why don���t we get together? Your dad loved food and wine. Let���s meet, eat, drink, and remember him.��� There were 35 friends at Spago, and John Paul [DeJoria, founder of the Paul Mitchell line of hair products] happened to come into the restaurant and see us. He said, ���I���ll give $5,000 to Alzheimer���s.��� Others jumped in and gave too. At the end of the night, we had $35,000 for Alzheimer���s research. We didn���t expect this to happen; it just did. So I went to Wolfgang and said, ���Let���s do a fundraising dinner.��� We raised more than $50 million from 1996 to 2004. The money went toward the work of Dr. Leon Thal, professor and chair of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego���s School of Medicine, who had treated and cared for my father in his final months. Dr. Thal said, ���If we���re going to do this, you ought to build a care facility to take care of the people in Las Vegas. Nobody understands this coming tsunami of illness and death from Alzheimer���s. Your people in Las Vegas really do not have a team of doctors who are properly trained about Alzheimer���s.��� Bobby Baldwin and I decided we were going to design a state-of-the-art care facility. Bobby also lost his dad to the disease; it���s insidious. We bought some land near Durango Road and the 215. I said, ���Leon, what in God���s name do I know about running a facility? Will you do it with me?��� Although Leon couldn���t move to Las Vegas, he said he would help oversee the Lou Ruvo Center. He was then killed in a plane crash [in February 2007], one week before one of the Keep Memory Alive galas. I always knew this wasn���t about just one person. It was about Bobby Baldwin���s dad, Kenny Epstein���s mother, the late Maddy Graves���s father. Four friends, one common goal. Nobody had an agenda, nobody let their guard down. ���TOM KAPLAN Oscar Goodman, a very close friend of my VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 054-060_V_SP_SpiritofGen_Spring13.indd 56 2/12/13 3:40 PM

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of ML - Vegas Magazine - 2013 - Issue 2 - Spring