Bellagio (Dunes site) + Paris
A lake fed by a dead golf course, and a half-scale Eiffel Tower that lost the argument with the airport.
Key facts
- The Dunes was imploded on October 27, 1993, in a spectacle staged as the grand opening of Steve Wynn's Treasure Island next door, complete with a “cannon shot” from the pirate ship; Bellagio was later built on the site.
- Bellagio opened in 1998 at a cost of about $1.6 billion; its 8-acre lake and dancing fountains draw in part on water from wells that once irrigated the Dunes golf course, and its lobby features a Dale Chihuly blown-glass ceiling.
- Paris Las Vegas, across the Boulevard, features a roughly half-scale replica Eiffel Tower; a full-height replica was ruled out partly because of its proximity to the airport's flight path.
Narration transcript
On your left is Bellagio — the lake, the fountains, the whole Italian-villa fantasy — and it is built on top of a ghost. This was the Dunes, and the Dunes went out in one of the most Vegas exits ever staged. On the twenty-seventh of October, 1993, Steve Wynn scheduled its demolition as the opening act for his new pirate resort across the street: the pirate ship “fired” a cannon, and on cue, the Dunes collapsed. A hotel imploded as entertainment for another hotel's grand opening.
Bellagio rose here in 1998 for about one-point-six billion dollars. And here's the detail I love: those dancing fountains, and that whole eight-acre lake, are fed in part by the old wells that used to water the Dunes' golf course. The desert didn't waste the water; it just changed what the water was for. Inside, the lobby ceiling is a canopy of two thousand hand-blown glass flowers by Dale Chihuly, and if the heist movie Ocean's Eleven is playing in your head right now — yes, this is the vault they crack.
Now glance across to your right, at Paris, and find the Eiffel Tower. Notice it looks a little... modest. That's because it's about half-scale — and the reason is wonderfully practical. A full-height replica would have poked straight into the flight path of the airport we started next to. Even fantasy has to file a flight plan here.
Keep heading north. Coming up on your right is a hotel that has lived two very different lives, and carries one of the heaviest stories on this street. Watch for the name Horseshoe.