Le Reve Hotel which was formerly the Desert Inn Hotel will open in 2005. Here is a rundown of what is planned for this Resort.
The Dessert Inn is closed
and due to reopen under a new name in 2005. Here are recent articles about this
highly anticipated Resort.
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Las Vegas Style Magazine
Dec. 1/01
Did you know that former Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn has said his
new resort project will be known as Le Reve, a name borrowed from one of
Picasso's most famous paintings? This painting and about a dozen others are
on display along with a model of Le Reve in one of the remaining buildings on
the old Desert Inn property. Le Reve with water attractions which are
unprecedented on the Strip is expected to cost about the same as Wynn¹s last
resort Bellagio which came in at $1.85 billion. Le Reve with about 2,400 rooms
will feature a high level of luxury on a more intimate scale than is found at Bellagio
with its sprawling public area and 3,000 rooms.
Los Angeles
Times
Las Vegas Mogul Wynn Plans New Resort
Leisure: Le Reve, to be built on the old Desert Inn
site, will mark the return of the hotelier to the casino business.
Los Angeles Times Oct.
22/01
LAS VEGAS -- The city's casino king is at it again. A
year and a half after Steve Wynn left the gambling business, he announced last
week that he will open Le Reve, a resort he predicts will be unlike any other on
the Las Vegas Strip.
"People are going to come from everywhere to see it and marvel at it,"
Wynn said Friday in a speech during the 15th annual World Gaming Congress &
Expo at the Venetian hotel-casino.
Le Reve means "the dream" in French and is the name of a Pablo Picasso
painting Wynn owns. Wynn has been quiet on his plans for the old Desert Inn
resort he bought for $270 million in June 2000. Wynn made the purchase just
months after he sold Mirage Resorts Inc. to MGM Grand Inc. (now MGM Mirage) for
$4.4 billion in March 2000. Mirage properties included Treasure Island, Mirage,
Bellagio and the Golden Nugget.
Wynn made about $483 million on the sale, and casino executives and gambling
analysts assumed the man who sparked the Las Vegas mega-resort building boom
would create another major project.
Wynn, 59, spoke to the crowd for an hour but spent only 10 minutes talking about
his new project. He revealed few details, saying the resort will have two
theaters, great shopping and restaurants.
The resort won't have a theme, something very un-Vegas.
"It's about our desert and the southwestern United States," he said.
"It's time for Las Vegas to have its own hotel."
Wynn predicted Le Reve will compete with the upscale Bellagio.
He said Chanel and Christian Dior have agreed to open stores in the resort.
Balthazar, a New York restaurant, also will open in Le Reve, Wynn said.
One of the resort's theaters will feature a show about a fictional tribe in the
Himalayas that lives in isolation. Children in the tribe can fly until they
reach age 11, Wynn said.
The show will be about a young man who refuses to accept his loss of flight and
the adventures he has as he tries to regain flight.
Cirque du Soleil Inc. founder Franco Dragone will be the resort's entertainment
director, but Wynn said the show will be completely different from Cirque du
Soleil shows at Treasure Island and Bellagio.
Wynn did not say when Le Reve will open, but said the design is finished and a
model of the property will be on display in the lobby of the closed Desert Inn
in about a month. He has said the resort would open in about 21/2 years.
According to plans filed with the Clark County Planning Commission, the resort
will include a 120,000-square-foot casino, 15 restaurants and entertainment
venues, 70,000 square feet of retail space, 132,000 square feet of convention
space, two wedding chapels, a luxury spa and a three-acre pool deck.
Much of the Desert Inn will be imploded to make way for the new resort. One
tower will be imploded early Tuesday morning.
Wall Street analysts have estimated the price of the project at $1.2 billion to
$1.3 billion, but Wynn did not disclose the price during his speech.
Wynn said his personal art collection will be displayed in a gallery that will
open Nov. 13 in the Desert Inn's old gift shop.
Wynn is credited with changing the Las Vegas Strip into a gambling bonanza. He
opened the Mirage hotel-casino in 1989, sparking an unprecedented building boom
on and off the Strip.
Mega-resorts became the destination of choice, and Las Vegas became the nation's
fastest-growing metropolitan area.
"Le Reve has been the most wonderful experience of my life," he said.