THE FULL STEVE WYNN INTERVIEW WITH VEGAS CONFIDENTIAL
ON HIS NEW NIGHTCLUB XS
"The nightclub scene has become a $600-$700 million business and it represents a real major shift in late night entertainment. Kids want to be part of the show, not sit and watch it."
A visit to French hotspot St. Tropez helped him see the potential of starting the party scene earlier.
"It starts in the afternoon in St. Tropez," he said, with the lunch crowd.
"They add the deejay and it’s a night energy experience.
"We noticed there was an appetite for it in these isolated places and pools around the town. This time, learning from our own experience, evolving, we took a restaurant named after Fernando Botero, a great artist, and put his stuff in there with his permission. Botero, XS, the cabanas and the bar that’s in the middle of the pool has all been conceived as a unit that will operate together. So there’s this influence, this St. Tropez kind of moment that impacted Victor Drai and my attitude in the way we laid out that end of the pool and restaurant and the food and beverage nightclub scene.
"It’s complete integrated and meant to operate together. Even the cabanas are part of the nightclub at night and can be served by the staff. So here we have an arrangement that I would not have understood 10 years ago. It would have had no relevance to me. So here’s a combination of our own experiences, the evolving tastes of the public to produce a product, an arrangement, a very important part of this hotel that is new to all of us.
You saw the beginnings of it at the Palms, with having stuff out at the pool. Then going into the clubs. You see the beginnings of it at Wynn. You going to see it mature and when I mention what we’ve done and why we’ve done – you say ‘Steve, what changed your thinking in selecting this project,’ that’s one of the things.
ON SINATRA--THE RESTAURANT
He's giving Frank Sinatra's two daughter, Tina and Nancy, and son Frank Jr., their first look Saturday at the restaurant named after their father.
They will find a space awash in orange (table clothes) and green (carpet). An outside dining area features a flower garden and assorted trees that hide the outside world, except for the very top of the nearby Trump tower.
Four large photographs of Sinatra, several at least seven feet high, are on the walls, including one in a private area called "the boardroom" that shows Sinatra and Wynn together.
“We took that for the cover of Atlantic City magazine,” said Wynn. “On the cover it said, ‘The Chairmen of the Board.’
“There were two pictures, one of me sitting at the piano and then leaning on the piano. There were two of him at the board table. So I took two copies and sent them Fed Ex to Sinatra to this country club where he lived in Palms Springs and I called him on his phone two days later and said ‘Did you get the pictures?’
"I said ‘I’ve got two copies in front of me and I sent you two. The magazine would like to have us select one.' I thought maybe you’d want to decide. He said, ‘well if it’s called 'The Chairmen of the Board,' pick the one at the board table. I said, ‘OK, I’ll tell ‘em, thank you, goodbye’ and he said, ‘wait, wait. You got ‘em in front of you?’ I said, ‘yeah.’ He said, ‘Sign the one and send it to me.’ I said, ‘wait a minute, are you asking for my autograph?’ He said, ‘Don’t be a jerk. Sign it.’
“I said, ‘You are asking for my autograph.’ He said, ‘You are a jerk, sign the damn thing.’ I said, ‘what are you going to do with it?” “I’m going to put it up on the bar.’ I said, ‘You’ve got one of me, sign it.’ He said, ‘OK.’ It’s hanging in my boardroom,” said Wynn.
Wynn's deal with the Sinatras includes access to Frank's musical archives and diners will hear studio conversation much like those heard in "Love," Cirque du Soleil's collaboration with The Beatles at The Mirage.
Early in our interview, Wynn asked a female staffer to turn up the sound system in the restaurant.
As she rushed off to take care of the request, I asked if the music in the restaurant will be exclusively Sinatra.
“It will probably be three out of five. We'll have Dean, Sammy, Tony (Bennett). Frank introduces Dean Martin, he introduces Nat King Cole." During one studio conversation, Sinatra can be heard saying "all of us lost a great friend when Nat King Cole died," said Wynn.
Wynn has the family's permission not only to use the family name but they are loaning memorabilia like Sinatra's Academy Award.
"I was sitting at my desk last Wednesday when I brought the awards here in anticipation of opening the restaurant and I turned on Sinatra and sat there with the Oscar in front of me and I’ll tell you it was one of the most ecstatic nights.
"I just sat there at 9 o’clock at night like an idiot and listening to the music and looking at the picrture of Frank and Donna Reid on that night in 1953 when they both got the Academy Awards for supporting actors.
"It was a very big moment in Sinatra’s life. He was having some hard times. He played Maggio in 'From Here to Eternity' and received the Oscar. It was a very big changing moment. It re-launched his career. And knowing that and having talked to him about that I don’t think I felt closer to him since I was with him. It was emotional.
"I was so excited I called Steve Lawrence (Lawrence and his wife Eydie Gorme opened for Sinatra on tours and were close friends) and said, ‘Stevie, listen to this, I’m in the office, I’ve got a cigar in my hand and I’m listening to Sinatra sing ‘Here’s to the losers’ and I’ve got the Oscar in my hand.’ And he says, ‘You do? I’ll be over in the morning!’”
As a Sinatra song was ending on the sound system, Wynn said, “Let’s see if he talks.”
The segue was Sinatra’s voice, but with a German accent that cracked up Wynn.
“He did all this in a studio when he was 50, for the fun of it,” said Wynn. “He talks about Tommy Dorsey, as he’s introducing him.”
“Oh, good song,” said Wynn, who started to sing along. “I’m not the guy who cared about fortune and fame…never cared much, nowww look at me now.”
It seemed like the perfect segue to ask Wynn about a now-famous quote from his arch-rival Sheldon Adelson, who took shots at Wynn about a year ago as Adelson was preparing to open The Palazzo across the street from the Wynn.
“I’m sure you probably recall that quote,” I said, repeating Adelson’s words that Wynn’s time "has come and gone.’’ Adelson made the remark to Las Vegas free-lancer Steve Friess in a USA Today article.
“Yah,” said Wynn, “and I remember when he said it, I started to pack up. I figured anybody who is the master of the universe must know everything. Who am I to argue?”
“My reaction,” said Wynn, “is the same as since his arrival on the scene. Total incredulity. He has surprised me in every single way. He’s quite an extraordinary fellow, Sheldon, and his approach has been singular, to say the list, to the industry and to life in general.
“And I think it’s pretty safe to say that hardly any of us have seen anybody quite like Sheldon and we wish him well.
“Sheldon is fearless. You have to give him credit for being fearless. Who else would have enough guts to start six hotels at once without the money to finish them? That’s extraordinary. I know it’s old fashioned idea but I’ve always had my money all done before I broke ground. I know that’s old fashioned these days, but that’s why our interest rate is 3 percent here on our bank line, here and China. I don’t know what anyone else is paying but I borrowed the money before I started anything and my builder told me he’s told me he’s going to give me back $40-odd million. We’re getting a refund.”
I asked him if he made a bid for Treasure Island.
He shook his head no. He had predicted to me two months earlier during a conversation that MGM Mirage would have to start selling some of its Strip properties to pay for the rising cost of the City Center, which started with a projected cost of about $7 billion and has soared past $10 billion.
“It’s nice for Treasure Island,” he said. “Tom Mikulich, who started with me as a slot guy down at the Nugget, is a competent executive. There’s a good staff there. And now they go a da-da that owns it with $500 million in equity and $250 million in debt. That place is bullet proof. And now we’ve got one guy who is only worried about Treasure Island. That's good for Treasure Island and good for the Treasure Island employees.
"The unbundling of Las Vegas is going to be a positive thing. I didn’t think bundling it, or consolidation as it was politely referred to, was good and I expressed that thought to the governor, Gov. Guinn, and I’m totally in favor and I think it will be better for MGM and better for the town and better for Treasure Island to have these places get sold off.
" It means Bobby Baldwin and Jim Murren have more time to worry about places like City Center. That’s a good thing. Having 10 hotels in one city is not a bright idea in my opinion. You can’t focus enough. I know there are really good managers in each hotel, but having run four or five at one time, I will tell you there’s nothing like focus…when you have your eggs in one or two baskets, you tend to watch the baskets. That’s a good thing.
ON HIS PLANS TO WRAP THE UNFINISHED ECHELON ON THE STARDUST SITE
Wynn said he hasn't had a chance to discuss it with Boyd Gaming but he added, "It's not most expensive thing in the world to do. It was like $50,000-60,000. I'm lining entire front of the Frontier-Silver Slipper site with 1,000 to 1,200 (pine) trees from D.I. to the Fashion Show."
CLARIFYING HIS INTEREST IN THE GUARD ANGEL CATHEDRAL LAND
"We once toyed with it but it was a very cursory thing and we lost interest in it," he said.
"I never contacted the Vatican. The monsignor told me he checked with the Diocese and it would require approval to sell church land. He told Sig Rogich that such a project would be interminably long in his opinion and we lost interest. We built one structure right on our property so the emplyees didn’t have to walk anywhere. We decided it was better to stop all of our development south of the arterial on our own property and not have people walking across streets with traffic."
ON HIS DEAL WITH THE BEE GEES
"The Bee Gees and ourselves are working on a show that would involve the Bee Gees music, the Bee Gees’ story, more like ‘Jersey Boys.’ Barry and Robin have entered into an agreement with me to produce that show because they know me and they trusted us and they turned it over to us. And they treatment is being done by Bob Martin, who did “The Drowsy Chaperone.'"
Martin who wrote it and starred in the Broadway musical that received 13 Tony nominations, including Best Musical, Best Lead Actor in a Musical (Martin) and Best Book (Martin co-wrote it).
--NORM CLARKE, Vegas Confidential
