Las Vegas subdivisions have Siegfried & Roy ties, themed street names
Siegfried & Roy wowed audiences on the Strip for years with magic and white tigers, becoming synonymous with Las Vegas’ over-the-top entertainment scene.
After their run ended, they also made millions in one of Southern Nevada’s other favorite pastimes: real estate.
Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, who died in Las Vegas this month at age 75 of complications from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, sold land over the years to two homebuilders. Their projects are now alongside the famed duo’s compound at Rancho Drive and Rainbow Boulevard.
D.R. Horton bought a parcel from them in 2006 for more than $6.7 million, and KB Home picked one up early last year for $5.25 million, records show.
The developers launched typical Vegas housing tracts, albeit with names in honor of the performers’ German roots, big cats and longtime venue on the Strip.
D.R.’s project, Bavaria Estates, features such streets as White Tiger Court, Tigers Lair Court and Mirage Garden Street. KB’s subdivision, now under construction, is called Mirage Landings.
Shona Sheffey, who lives on Tigers Lair Court in Bavaria Estates, said people get a kick out of her street name.
“We always thought it was pretty cool,” she said.
Robert Reale, who also lives on Tigers Lair, said the proximity to the entertainers’ compound is a “conversation point, if nothing else.”
Bavaria Estates is a nice development, and good people live there, Reale said. But overall, it’s nothing unique.
“It’s like any other subdivision that we’ve lived in,” he said.
KB did not deal directly with the entertainers and was drawn to the parcel in part because the area “offers a high level of affordability not seen in some other submarkets,” spokesman Craig LeMessurier said.
Prices at the project start in the $270,000-range, he said.
D.R. Horton did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Dave Kirvin, a representative for the entertainers, said Fischbacher was not available for interviews, and “there is no one to comment on this.”
Siegfried and Roy, who met on a cruise liner in 1957, arrived in Las Vegas in 1967 as a specialty act at the Tropicana. After performing at other hotels on the Strip, they made their debut at The Mirage in 1990.
Their $30 million production “sold out every night from the first night to the last,” Fischbacher once said.
The run came to a violent end in 2003 when a white tiger dragged Horn offstage during a show, crushing his windpipe, damaging an artery and leaving him on life support, the New York Times reported.
He spent years in physical therapy but also “traveled the world, visited his animals daily and could be seen attending shows and philanthropic events in Las Vegas,” said the release announcing his death May 8.
Even though the entertainers had a glitzy career on the Strip, the Bavaria Estates subdivision near their compound is still just that — a subdivision.
“It’s real quiet,” Sheffey said.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.