“Visible between the towers, a round four-story atrium that suggested the round midsection of a woman promising future life.”
It’s not often you read a tribute to a building that allegorizes features of the structure to a pregnant woman’s physique, but that’s exactly what you’ll get reading Steve Wynn’s heartfelt tribute the famed Mirage that is set to be closed and remodeled as Hard Rock Las Vegas under the ownership of Florida’s Seminole Tribe.
In lieu of public interviews expressing his feelings about this memorable property that was at one point the largest hotel ever built (or so he says), Wynn elected to submit a written letter to various publications.
The Las Vegas Review Journal got a hold of this letter, and some of the sentiments are rather… compelling.
The birth story
Wynn is clearly very proud of his accomplishment with The Mirage, and why shouldn’t he be? It was one of the Strip’s most iconic properties that helped really put Sin City on the map after opening its doors in 1989.
According to Wynn, “the notion of offspring turned out to be real as well.” No completely new hotel had been built in Vegas in the prior 16 years preceding Lady Mirage, but that all changed once she made her debut.
“Other than a few additional rooms being built at existing hotels such as the Golden Nugget, nothing was built from scratch. However, in the next decade following the 1989 arrival of mirage, we rushed into a virtual doubling of the town’s capacity and became the fastest growing city in America. To call The Mirage a catalyst would be an understatement.”
Lions, tigers, and… dolphins?
“Once again, she was always about ideas, and she had a soul.”
Wynn really humanized The Mirage in this ballad, and cited the somewhat surprising assortment of animals featured at the resort that you wouldn’t exactly expect to prosper in the Nevada desert.
"Arriving guests who were checking in were treated to a full wall in the lobby of live sharks swimming with hundreds of tropical fish behind the front desk and enjoying the aroma of pina-colada."
Wynn mentioned dolphin lagoons that gave local school children the chance to learn about marine mammals every weekday until noon, and then the public had access to see the dolphins play in the afternoon.
One of Vegas’ most legendary acts called The Mirage home, drawing thousands of people to the property to, "wander through the secret garden of Siegfried & Roy next to the dolphins and experience close-up intimacy with white tigers, black and white tigers, white lions, black leopards, and even a wonderful Asian elephant named Jilda and her surprising roommate, a wild turkey, that were all on display.”
Turning up the heat
Wynn described The Mirage as a universe in and of itself. Its ambiance had everything from rich Canary Island palm trees and a cool refreshing waterfall to a volcano out front that erupted every 30 minutes in the face of Caesar right next door, “as a reminder that the Lady had spunk.”
Ultimately, Wynn reveled in the value his grand enterprise created for its community.
“So much depended on Lady Mirage. Almost 8,000 employees and their families depended on her. Siegfried & Roy depended on her, the dolphins and the kids depended on her, and it turns out the future of Las Vegas depended on her.”
