The Mirage: The final eruption from its signature volcano on Wednesday marked the end of a longtime Las Vegas resort that stunned people when it opened in 1989, revolutionizing the casino resort industry and reshaping Las Vegas as a tourist destination. “What would The Mirage be without one last volcanic eruption?” Joe Lupo, property president of The Mirage, asked during the closing ceremony. Hundreds of spectators attended the ceremony, including 137 employees who had worked at the 3,044-room resort since its opening. New owner Jim Allen, of Florida-based Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming, said work “actually begins tomorrow” to destroy the volcano, which has rumbled and erupted every night for nearly 35 years. Plans call for a guitar-shaped 600-room hotel with guitar string-like rays shooting out from a purple 660-foot (201-meter) tower into the night sky. Allen promised more details in the coming months. Lupo, who remains chairman of the property even after the change of hands, said the new Hard Rock Las Vegas will open in 2027. Ellen Wynn, the former wife of billionaire philanthropist and casino mogul Steve Wynn, who built the property, recalled that two performing tigers belonging to resort headliners Siegfried and Roy were the first “guests” through the door in November 1989. She said the first wave of people stopped, stared and applauded at the entrance. It featured lush tropical foliage under the domed glass roof and a light piña colada scent in the air.
Its standing-room-only crowd turned out last week to win a total of $1.6 million in slot machine progressive jackpot winnings, which state regulations said had to be distributed to clear the books before the doors closed. Slot players who were lucky enough to get a seat competed for a daily prize pot of up to $250,000. Michael Lawton, a spokesman for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said Wednesday that he could not by law provide details on how the effort came to be. The Mirage, which cost $630 million, was no ordinary casino. When it opened, it was the world’s largest hotel. Visitors encountered two bronze mermaid statues on their way to check in at a desk behind which was a giant shark and fish tank. It also had upscale shops, celebrity chef restaurants and theater-sized showrooms with major performers such as Johnny Mathis, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. Illusionist duo Siegfried and Roy and their tigers performed for 14 years, ending in 2003. Later, it became home to the Beatles-themed Cirque du Soleil show “Love,” which ended its 18-year run this month.
“Instead of neon, a garden of dozens of rich Canary Island palm trees and a cool refreshing waterfall,” Steve Wynn recalled in a statement of the memoirs released Monday through his Las Vegas attorney, Donald Campbell. Wynn titled it “Tribute to Lady Mirage.” He did not attend Wednesday’s ceremony. In his statement, Wynn noted that The Mirage was the first new hotel in Las Vegas in several years and opened amid competition from casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey and the expansion of tribal gambling in California. He pointed to a decade-long resort construction boom that helped make Las Vegas one of America’s fastest-growing cities. “To say The Mirage was a catalyst would be an understatement,” Wynn wrote. By 2000, more than 30,000 new hotel rooms were added as new Las Vegas Strip resorts were built: Excalibur, Luxor, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, New York-New York, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, The Venetian and Paris Las Vegas. Many were funded by Wall Street bonds. In 2005 Wynn bought and demolished the 50-year-old Desert Inn and built a renamed Wynn Resort.
Wynn, now 82 and living in Florida, last year paid a $10 million fine to Nevada gambling regulators and severed ties with the industry he had helped shape, to end a years-long legal battle stemming from media reports in 2018 that he sexually harassed or assaulted several women at his hotels. He has always denied the allegations. Bo Bernhard, director of the International Gaming Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, studies the emergence of the “fun economy” around the world. He said the Mirage set a standard for resort developments in places like Singapore and Sydney. “The Mirage changed the image of Las Vegas to the rest of the world,” Bernhard said. It was “more than just gambling” and “changed everything,” he said. The Seminole Tribe acquired the Hard Rock brand in 2007 from a deal with MGM Resorts International worth about $1.1 billion. It became the 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 and casino business located in 76 countries. An off-Strip former Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas was separately owned by a group that included billionaires
