LAS VEGAS (AP) — A final eruption of the Mirage’s iconic volcano wiped out Wednesday the aging Las Vegas resort that thrilled crowds when it opened in 1989, revolutionizing the casino-resort industry and reinventing Las Vegas as a tourist destination.
“What would the Mirage have been like if that last volcano hadn’t erupted?” Mirage Property President Joe Lupo asked at the end of the closing ceremony, which drew hundreds of spectators, including 137 employees who have worked at the 3,044-room resort since it first opened.
Jim Allen, a Florida-based representative for the property’s new owners, said: Hard Rock International and Seminole GamingHe said work to quell the volcano, which has roared and erupted every night for nearly 35 years, “literally begins tomorrow.”
The plan is for 600 rooms. Guitar-shaped hotel The renderings show a purple-hued, 660-foot (201-meter) tower with guitar-string-like beams jutting out into the night sky, and Allen promised to reveal more details in the coming months.
Lupo, who will continue as president of real estate after the leadership change, said the new Hard Rock Las Vegas is scheduled to open in 2027.
Elaine Wynn, the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of the casino magnate who built the property, Steve Wynn, recalls that the first “guests” to arrive at the property in November 1989 were the resort’s two featured tigers, Siegfried & Roy. The first wave of people stopped, stared and applauded beneath the entrance atrium, where lush tropical vegetation flourished beneath a domed glass ceiling and the faint scent of piña coladas wafted through the air.
Standing-room only crowds flocked to the casino for the final week, hoping to win $1.6 million in progressive jackpot prizes on slot machines, but state regulations meant the casino had to pay out the winnings to clear the books before closing. Slot players lucky enough to get a seat competed for up to $250,000 a day. Nevada Gaming Control Board spokesman Michael Lawton said Wednesday that by law he could not provide information about how the effort worked.
Built at a cost of $630 million, the Mirage was more than just a gambling house: It was the largest hotel in the world when it opened. Two bronze mermaids greeted visitors on their way to the check-in counter, with a giant shark and an aquarium behind them.
It featured glamorous shops, restaurants with celebrity chefs, and theater-sized showrooms that featured headliners such as Johnny Mathis, Kenny Rogers, and Dolly Parton. Illusionist duo Siegfried & Roy and Their Tigers performed there for 14 years until they called it quits in 2003. They then opened a Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil Shows “Love” ended its 18-year run this month.
“Instead of neon lights there were dozens of lush gardens of Canary Island palms and a cool, refreshing waterfall,” Steve Wynn recalled in a memoir he released Monday through his Las Vegas lawyer, Donald Campbell, who titled it “Tribute to Mrs. Mirage.” He did not attend Wednesday’s ceremony.
Wynn said in a statement that the Mirage was the first new Las Vegas hotel in years and opened amid competition from casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and expanding tribal gambling in California. Wynn noted that a decade of resort construction boom has made Las Vegas one of the fastest-growing cities in America.
“To call Mirage a catalyst would be an understatement,” Wynn wrote.
By 2000, new resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, including Excalibur, Luxor, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, New York New York, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Venetian and Paris Las Vegas, had been built and over 30,000 new hotel rooms had been added, much of it financed with Wall Street bonds. Wynn purchased and demolished the 50-year-old Desert Inn, and built and opened his eponymous Wynn Resort in 2005.
Wynn, 82 and living in Florida, paid a $10 million fine to Nevada gambling regulators last year and severed ties with the industry he helped shape. put an end to a long legal battle The case stems from media reports that he sexually harassed and assaulted multiple women at a hotel he managed in 2018. He has consistently denied the allegations.
Bo Bernhardt, director of the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who studies the emergence of what’s known as the “entertainment economy” around the world, said the Mirage set the standard for resort development in cities like Singapore and Sydney.
“The Mirage changed the image that Las Vegas projected to the world,” Bernhardt said. “It was more than just gambling,” he said, and “it changed everything.”
The Seminole Tribe acquired the Hard Rock brand in 2007. MGM Resorts International The deal was worth approximately $1.1 billion. First Native American Operator In the lucrative and competitive Las Vegas Boulevard corridor, the tribe also operates seven casinos in Florida and owns the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino business, which has a presence in 76 countries. It purchased the naming rights in 2016 and Hard Rock Stadium In Miami Gardens, Florida.
The former Hard Rock Hotel off the Las Vegas Strip had different owners: A group that included Virgin Group founder and billionaire Richard Branson bought the hotel-casino in 2018 for about $1 million. $500 millionIt was renovated and reopened in 2021 as Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.
“Las Vegas is constantly innovating,” says Michael Green, a history professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, whose father dealt blackjack for decades at casinos such as the Stardust and Showboat, which have long since gone bankrupt. “The Mirage is no longer cutting edge.”
