COMMENTARY: The Mirage was no mirage

Not many can say they stayed at The Mirage on its first night and its last night, but I can. In 1989, my father took me for my 21st birthday, and this past weekend I returned for its last night with friends. In between, I’ve stayed there at least 50 times, mostly with college friends who made it an annual trek during its first 20 years.

Seeing it close felt like attending a sad funeral, like when your 35-year-old friend dies suddenly in the midst of a full life. Frankly, it’s all so unnecessary, if not dumb.

One doesn’t need to be a casino maven to see the obvious.

When the Desert Inn, Stardust, Sands or Dunes shut down, it was time. Past time. Same with the Tropicana’s recent closing. Had you walked through those joints on their last day, you would have said: “Yes, bring on the wrecking ball, this place needed it at least five years ago.”

But not The Mirage.

Walk through it and you see a place still humming, still beautiful. It looks good. The rooms we stayed in this past weekend are still great and modern. The hallways nice. The feel and look remain iconic and soothing, a place you want to be in.

Whatever it may need, it’s not a full gut job that will make the place unrecognizable in three years. (Watch, it will take five to reopen).

And to get rid of the best pool in Vegas borders on travesty.

Being there to shut the joint down left our group saying: “What’s wrong with this place as is?”

Most of us hadn’t been in many years and were expecting a rundown place. But we found the opposite. Why fix what isn’t broken? If you want to add a guitar tower and put a new name on the door, go for it, I suppose. But why gut a working beauty still in the prime of her life?

It reminds me of the Joni Mitchell lyric: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Today’s new “modern” casino feels more like an airport concourse than a place that takes you on an adventure like none other. That’s what The Mirage does. Or did. That is Steve Wynn’s genius.

Seriously, if you try to walk from one end of any of the modern casinos to the other, you feel like you need to catch an airport tram between terminals. But not at The Mirage.

So what do we do nowadays when we have near perfection? We wreck it.

When you take something over, real maturity and leadership is recognizing that perhaps change is not the answer. Being the smartest suit in the room sometimes requires embracing the maxim: “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

Why would you abandon your competitive advantage to make something unique look pretty much like all the other giants? Sure, I write this with more than a twinge of nostalgia, but the uniqueness of The Mirage was not a mirage.

You watch. In 10 years, some wise maven — a young Steve Wynn perhaps — will buy the logo and brand of the long dormant Mirage and build a new one much like the old one. And same as in 1989, hundreds of thousands of people will be waiting to get in.

William Choslovsky is a lawyer in Chicago.