Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/49393
STEVE WYNN become a signature design element of the resort. RIGHT: Steve Wynn bedecked Atrium at Wynn has With its Matisse- inspired mosaic floor, the floral- Wynn's propensity for reworking spaces in favor of new concepts for his award-winning resorts has become the stuff of legend. S 24 WYNN teve Wynn carefully ponders the question that's been put before him: Is there any one element throughout his hotels that he absolutely would never consider changing? In the ensuing silence as he thinks, a follow-up query is posed: Or is everything up for grabs? Wynn laughs at the addendum. After all, his propensity for reworking spaces, an incessant desire to tinker with or tear apart existing rooms in favor of new concepts for his award-winning resorts, has become the stuff of Las Vegas legend. It's nota- ble that Wynn has rarely, if ever, been mistaken in his thinking—decreasing the once-expansive Terrace Pointe Café to realize the neighboring wine bar La Cave, for example, or ripping up a Strip-adjacent porte cochère to build Encore Beach Club are two recent projects that have paid off in both accolades and revenue. So it's no surprise when Wynn says, "I don't want to be disloyal to our traditions, but if I can think of a better way of doing it…" His voice trails off as an image leaps to mind, one element that may indeed be immune to Wynn's love of change. But more on that in a moment. In late October, as the holidays approached, Wynn had set his sights on a variety of new projects, most intended for the south side of his eponymous resort: the creation of a high-limit slots room where Blush, the boutique nightclub, once stood; a more open and expanded lobby with bar for Wynn's Tower Suites; and a new nightclub concept near Wing Lei, to take over the spot previously occupied by the restaurant Alex. Only the latter will require until the end of 2012 for completion; at press time Wynn anticipated opening the high-limit slots room and the revamped Tower Suites lobby before the end of December 2011. What spawned this latest evolution? "I felt the south Tower Suites lobby was a little too hidden," he explains. "There's a fine line between exclusivity and isolation, and the seating area there, while beautiful, felt a bit obstructed. So the idea is that soon you'll be able to traverse the casino aisle near the restaurant Red 8 and enjoy the view into this stun- ning VIP lobby and beyond." Moving the high-limit slots room, meanwhile, is not merely about creating space for the Tower Suites lobby concept, Wynn adds: "It will feel like a beautiful living room with a garden," he says, calling the design "more elegant, more upscale than anything that's been done in the gaming industry, here in Las Vegas or in Asia." In April, Wynn Las Vegas celebrates its seventh anniversary, and the man who in 2005 famously affixed his signature to the top of the building once again proves he will never be content to rest on the laurels of any past moment. "One of the things I love about this hotel is that it's always changing," he says. "That's become part of our identity, with good reason. When you've set the bar in a town like Las Vegas, then it rests on you to keep raising that bar. There's an expectation that we're going to offer the best experience for our guests, and we have to live up to that every day. That means keeping that experience new, exciting, and always upscale." Indeed, even as Las Vegas ranked among the most economically chal- lenged cities in the US throughout 2009, Wynn continued to invest in his brand, primarily via a $200 million endeavor that included a complete refurbishment of the 2,716 Resort rooms and Tower Suites at Wynn, as well as the removal of that Encore porte cochère to make room for the Beach Club and adjoining Surrender nightclub. "It's incumbent upon us to massage and improve the properties and make them more perfectly responsible to a changing public taste," he says, adding that the record-