Wynn Las Vegas Magazine by MODERN LUXURY

Wynn - 2015 - Issue 3 - Winter

Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas

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30 Wynn photography by barbara kraft (koons); Mirrorpix/Courtesy of everett ColleCtion (goldfinger) could comfortably swan up and down the Morris Lapidus–designed "staircase to nowhere" in their mink stoles in the heat of summer. "The place dazzled me. It didn't even have a sign, and you had to have a key to get into the lobby. They didn't allow lookie-loos." It was in the hotel's La Ronde Room that Wynn frst saw some of the performers who were hitting it big in Las Vegas, including Sammy Davis Jr., Jack Benny, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis Presley. Even as a teen, Wynn was forming incisive conclusions about how a sense of intimacy and fantasy should inform hotel architecture. "The idea of creating a world that was better than the outside world is, in literary terms, very romantic," he says. "The thing about the Fontainebleau is that it had parts that you could go to—from a two-story lobby with massive windows to smaller spaces, formal French gar- dens—that felt like you'd just discovered them. I thought it would be a great life to build a place like that. I changed my major from premed. I wanted to be a developer like Ben Novack." Wynn credits two men as being the drivers of fantasy destination resort development in the late 1950s: Ben Novack and Walt Disney. "Walt became much more famous for the park than he did for the cartoons," he says. "That television show that was all about the wonderful world of Disney was always about the park. Remember, the theme of the show was to look at the palace." Jay Sarno was similarly afected by the Fontainebleau, Wynn explains, building the frst themed resort in Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, partly with money from Jimmy Hofa's Teamsters union. "Caesars almost became as big as the town," he says. "It was hard to separate Caesars Palace from all its prizefghts and stars. Prior to Caesars, all the hotels on the Strip were identical. The Riv, the Flamingo, the Sands, the Dunes—they were all casinos in front of a motel building. Caesars Palace was a fantasy world totally integrated like the Fontainebleau, only more themed. "All of those infuences matured while I was impressionable," Wynn adds. "Disneyland became from top: The Fontainebleau cabanas as enjoyed by James Bond in Goldfnger; Jeff Koons's three-ton Tulips (part of the artist's "Celebration" series) departs Wynn Las Vegas for Wynn Palace in Macau in April. STEVE WyNN

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