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andr ea bennett
In 2006, at the taIl end
of a 13-year run
of notable
casino implosions that included the
Sands, Aladdin, El Rancho, Desert
Inn, and the New Frontier, I picked
up my paddle for the five-day
auction of more than 70,000 items
from the shuttered Stardust, which
would be leveled just a few months
later to make way for Echelon. (A bit
of history here: Echelon's construc-
tion, suspended in 2008 during the
recession, was ultimately halted.
Genting Gaming bought the site in
2013 for what is planned to be the
$4 billion Resorts World Las Vegas.)
I, like hundreds of other attendees,
went to the Stardust auction to gawk
at the relics of its 42-year history hauled
from the basement. Representatives
of every epoch of that galactic
fantastic resort were on offer, from the
monumental fertility gods that graced
its Aku Aku Polynesian restaurant at
the height of the '60s tiki era to
dazzling tiaras and G-strings from its
long-running Lido de Paris
produc-
tion
show. Of course, those treasures
were auctioned among 227 vacuum
cleaners, 57 sports-book televisions,
and 287 lots of plastic palm trees. You
get the point: It was a long five days.
These days, Las Vegas is less about
leveling its treasures than it is about
adaptively reusing them. Moving in
are brands with proven success
records elsewhere: Delano, for
instance, opened in mid-September
in what had been THEhotel at
Mandalay Bay, and SLS Las Vegas
started a new era in the magnificently
reconceived Sahara in late August.
Of course, this being Vegas—the
capital of brand appropriation—we
will find a way to make them ours.
Here's just one thing that excites me
about Las Vegas right now: You don't
need to sit through hours of auction
ephemera to get to the good stuff. You
can visit the very places history has
already been made, and make a little
yourself. And that, to me, is magical.
PhotograPhy
by
'Los
(gardiner);
Joe
durkin/@PhoJoPhoto
(Vann)
Could there be a better backdrop than the Bellagio fountains and the Eiffel Tower to view
Breguet's new collection of timepieces? Publisher Joe Vann and I got a special tour
with Breguet's Liliana Chen. (I have my eye on the new, diamond-encrusted Reine de Naples
Jour/Nuit. A girl can dream.)
from left: Writer Andy Wang and I celebrated the opening of SLS Las Vegas in what was perhaps the year's biggest shebang (special thanks to Platinum Entourage for those Veronica Lake waves I'll never be
able to replicate on my own). My husband, Reid Gardner, helped with hosting duty at our fantastic pool party at Palazzo's Azure pool. I always love the massive Virtuoso travel conference, held each August in
Las Vegas—particularly when I can reconnect with my longtime friend Peter Greenberg, CBS News's travel editor.
30 vegasmagazine.com
Letter from the editor-in-Chief
