Elaine Wynn’s last tour of The Mirage: ‘A deeply personal place’

Elaine Wynn wasn’t expecting to cry, but she is prepared to. She dabs at her eyes with Kleenex, overtaken by events and feelings dating more than 30 years.

“This is a deeply personal place for us,” says Wynn, who opened The Mirage with her then-husband, Steve Wynn, in November 1989. Their daughters, Kevyn and Gillian, grew up as the hotel’s legend took hold. “The day we opened, the girls went to school. They referred to The Mirage as their third sibling, and they never felt that way about the other properties.”

Wynn has been invited by Hard Rock International CEO Jim Allen and Hard Rock President Joe Lupo to speak at The Mirage’s closing event at the hotel’s porte-cochère.

The event would not have been complete without Elaine Wynn, a member of Las Vegas royalty. The largest shareholder in Wynn Las Vegas, Wynn recalled that the pressure to produce prompted acute anxiety — especially for Steve Wynn.

“Steve had a panic attack that no one was going to show up, on opening day,” Wynn says. “He was nervous that we hadn’t spent a gazillion dollars of marketing all over the world, and nobody was going to be here. Fortunately, they were wrong.”

A final tour

Wynn absorbs the memories as she walks through time, one last time, in her final tour of The Mirage.

She stops and looks inside the now-empty Parlour lounge. The space was originally a cocktail bar leading into a high-limit gaming area, with baccarat on the upper level and blackjack on the lower.

“We had to take out blackjack and put in more baccarat games, because there was such a demand for baccarat,” Wynn says, as the hotel’s appeal to Asian tourists became obvious. “The first New Year’s Eve we were open, Steve and I were leaning over the railing, watching a level of play we’d never seen before. It was a private moment, the two of us looking at each other with Cheshire Cat grins.”

She makes a last visit Love Theater entrance, the same venue where Siegfried & Roy premiered in February 1990 and performed to sellout crowds for 13 years.

They were the first to check into the hotel, escorting a duo of exotic cats with blinged-out leashes. Wynn is asked about Siegfried & Roy Drive, leading to the hotel’s main entrance, if it will survive the renovation.

“I hope so,” she says. “They should keep it. They were the greatest performers, ever.”

Worth the trek

Wynn brings up an ongoing argument between her and Steve early in the hotel’s development, as we approach the banks of guest elevators.

“He decided that the atrium and the casino would be away from the room tower, because then we would have less structural obstructions in the casino,” Wynn says. “I said, ‘You’re going to make these poor people walk all the way from the front desk back here to these elevators?’ He kept explaining the visual impact, and of course he was right.”

The result was that people felt as if they suddenly had stepped out of the desert and into the tropics. You also got your steps in, as we would say today. Wynn remembers, “This was the first place we got used to walking long distances.”

That applied to guests walking into the hotel, too. Wynn won the debate about the location of The Mirage entrance. Steve Wynn had wanted the building on the sidewalk.

“I told him, ‘You can’t put the building right up on the sidewalk, you will Reno-ize the Strip,’” Wynn says. “Push it back, so you can have perspective and appreciate this beautiful building.”

‘All the memories’

Along the walk, she spots employees at Karma & Luck jewelry and home decor store packing boxes. Wynn says hello, notices the name and says, “This place had good karma, and this place had good luck.”

Outside Mirage Theater, Wynn’s voice shakes when remembering the late headliner who opened the venue in 2000.

“The Danny Gans Theater … Dear, Danny,” she says, halting, the Kleenex up again. “We’ve lost so many people … Gosh, look at me right now. All the memories.”

The hallway leading past the theater was the entryway to the first Cirque show on the Strip, “Nouvelle Expérience.”

Vegas entertainment fans know the show led to the creation of “Mystere” at Treasure Island. But Wynn recalls on opening night, one of the performers crashed into the late philanthropist and IGT Chairman Chuck Mathewson.

“Thank God, he wasn’t injured,” Wynn recalls. “It would have been horrific.”

‘Well-done’!

Wynn passes the suite where Michael Jackson frequently stayed, visiting the S&R show as he had written and performed “Mind Over Matter” for The Mirage show.

The hallway bends to the gleaming, spotless convention area. Wynn stops and raises her voice, as if seeing the vast walkway for the first time, “This is goddamn well done, I’m sorry! This is so good, and they have kept it up so well.”

Wynn more than once remarks at the hotel’s condition, as clean as if it were opening instead of closing. Three hours before the doors shut forever, an employee was spotted sweeping the carpet near the registration desk.

Wynn points toward the swirling, blue carpeting in the hallway, a creation of MGM Resorts (then MGM Mirage) after that company too over the resort.

“The introduction of blue was at The Mirage,” Wynn says. “Technically, blue is not in good color for use in public space, because it’s cold and icy. But look at how warm this royal blue is … They made this yummy, creamy environment.”

Wynn soon makes an unexpected turn into Blizz Frozen Yogurt, of all places. Her eyes again well up.

“This was the first ice cream parlor …” she says, pausing as if to visualize the shop one last time. “This is where the children and Steve and I would sit and have sundaes, at the end of many a work day. It was fanciful, and it was a delight.” The same is said for The Mirage, where the founding family made memories for a lifetime.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.