Gaming executive Barry Shier lists home for $16.5M

An estate modeled after a French countryside cottage is on the market for $16.5 million.

The home on Billionaires Row in Summerlin belongs to Barry Shier, the former Mirage Resorts and Golden Nugget casino executive who’s envisioned the estate he built in 2000 as a place to entertain but also serve as a countryside private enclave where someone could recalibrate.

Shier bought the first lot on what’s known as Enclave Court in Summerlin, adjacent to the TPC Summerlin golf course, and the most exclusive gated street in Las Vegas. His home is isolated behind its own gate within the guard-gated Country Club Hills along with six other multimillion-dollar homes belonging to magician David Copperfield, former Wynn Resorts CEO Steve Wynn and casino-owner families the Fertittas and Herbsts.

“Barry’s home is located in an enclave with some of the most impressive homes in all of Las Vegas,” said Zar Zanganeh, whose Luxe Estates &Lifestyles is the listing agent. “It’s the epitome of Vegas luxury real estate, offering all the amenities of a five-star luxury destination with the privacy and security of a private estate.”

The Shier estate sits on 2.6 acres and is secluded from the golf course with its lagoon-style pool, spa, courtyard, lawns and bushes in the French country-style garden. There are several fruit trees — fig, plum, peach, nectarine, apricot, apple and lemon. All is surrounded by fencing with a wrought-iron gated entrance.

The estate has a lengthy roadway of crushed limestone leading 300 feet to the home where there’s a circular driveway. There’s a seven-car garage in which a maid’s living quarters sits on top.

“It’s the premier lot in the neighborhood in the middle of the street and only homesite with a double fairway view and the longest driveway,” Zanganeh said. “It’s impossible to find a home with this much landscaping on 2.5 acres on the west side of town.”

The 14,000-plus square-foot, two-story home, built by Merlin Custom Homes, has six bedroom suites and 10 baths. There’s an 850-bottle wine cellar and a theater. The master bedroom is a private wing of the residence that includes a gym, steam room, his-and-her custom closet dressing rooms and a master bath.

It’s an opulent chateau with components that can be compared to details only found in luxury hotels and casinos, according to Zangeneh. Shier was intimately involved in the design, development and operations of destination resorts such as The Waldorf Astoria in New York City and Golden Nugget and Mirage in Las Vegas, he said.

“Barry entertained the biggest names in the hospitality industry of people who have seen it all, and he definitely had to wow them with this house. He achieved that,” Zanganeh said. “It was a labor of love in designing his dream home. Because he comes from a hospitality background, a lot of thought went into the home. It had to be functional for entertaining, but it had to have the warmth. It feels warm and homey, and yet is a massive compound.”

Shier’s estate is an American interpretation of a French classic, Zangeneh said. There’s custom, hand-hewn beams imported from France and site-crafted custom cabinetry, handcrafted chestnut, cherry wood and limestone flooring, hand-hewn beams, silk tapestry and fine-wall finishes, he said. It has a slate roof and copper finishes along the roofline.

The home has a traditional floor plan with a formal sitting room with a piano, and a separate dining room that’s next to the kitchen, which has a fireplace.

The home is about its details in how bath countertops, for example, have blue marble imported from a quarry France and wall coverings that are hand-painted.

Many of the details are what is found in a French chateau to create the comfort of a palatial cottage. A bath has an antique sink and the home has other pieces and furniture from the 1800s in France.

The construction process mirrored the old way of building homes when a French family would built part of the home — the kitchen and the den — with stone walls put up six pieces at a time. When they built homes like that in the past, it was done over time and would create an irregularity in how the grout dried. This style was duplicated in this home.

“The concept of the home is the idea that it started as a small cottage (in the French countryside) that grew into the massive beautiful compound that it is today,” Zangeneh said.

The house tells a story. In the past, French families added onto their homes over the years as the family grew and accumulated more wealth. In the TPC home, there’s a point where the barn-like chestnut wood ends and cherry wood begins and becomes more modern. It was like taking a home hundreds of years old and putting in air conditioning and lights and modernizing it.

The home took 2½ years to design and the same amount of time to construct in order to follow the concept. It was designed by Killefer Flammang Architects of California.

On the outside, the yard feels like an escape from Las Vegas’ desert landscape and daily life. It resembles an open park with walking paths around the backyard.

Standing on the balcony of a second-floor bedroom, there are views of California pepper trees that outline the 300-foot-long fence that runs along the golf course. The fence extends the middle of the 10th fairway to the back side of the tee box on the 18th hole.

There are stone pine and mature mesquite trees on the property. The backyard is filled with crepe myrtles and oak trees in the courtyard area. There’s rose bushes, lantana and pyracantha that is dormant during the winter and creates a burst of red colors in the spring. Rhapis bushes surround the pool area that features quarried rock. The backyard has a fire pit for cooler nights and benches to sit and watch the birds.

Zanganeh said he envisions the potential buyer as someone who wants to entertain and seeks the best. About one home priced at $10 million or more sells in Las Vegas a year, but Zanganeh said this property will stand out and be sought out by buyers.

Zanganeh said Shier’s children are grown and have their own families and he no longer needs this large of a home.