Wynn Las Vegas

Wynn Las Vegas occupies the north end of the Las Vegas Strip, a curved tower of bronze glass set behind a man-made mountain of trees that hides the hotel from the street. It opened on 28 April 2005, the project with which Steve Wynn returned to the Strip after selling Mirage Resorts, and it was followed in December 2008 by the twin tower Encore. Together they form the largest luxury hotel complex in Las Vegas under a single owner, with a golf course, a lake show, a theatre and convention halls spread across the former Desert Inn estate.

History

Steve Wynn bought the Desert Inn in 2000, days after selling Mirage Resorts to MGM Grand, and closed it the same year. The Desert Inn had opened in 1950 and was once owned by Howard Hughes, who lived on its top floor. Wynn demolished the old towers and built the new resort over five years at a cost of about 2.7 billion dollars, the most expensive hotel in the world when it opened in 2005. The water show Le Rêve, played in a theatre in the round, opened with the hotel and ran until 2020. Encore, an all-suite tower of similar height, opened on 22 December 2008. Steve Wynn resigned from Wynn Resorts in February 2018 and the company, which also operates in Macau and Boston, continues to run both towers.

Architecture and design

The tower is 614 feet high and curved in plan, its facade of bronze-tinted glass carrying the Wynn signature at the top. The architect of record was Butler/Ashworth Architects, led by DeRuyter Butler, and the general contractor Marnell Corrao, with the interiors directed by Roger Thomas. The mountain of pines and olive trees at the front, about 140 feet high, screens the Lake of Dreams, a lake and waterfall where a projection and light show plays every half hour at night. Interiors use floral carpets, mosaic floors, parasols hung from the atrium ceiling and natural light in the conservatories, a departure from the windowless casino halls of the previous generation.

Rooms and suites

Wynn Las Vegas has 2,716 rooms and suites, with Encore adding 2,034 suites in its own tower. Floor-to-ceiling windows look over the golf course, the Strip or the mountains, and the Tower Suites at Wynn and Encore have a separate entrance, lobby and pool. Rooms were renovated in the early 2020s.

Dining

The resort has around twenty restaurants and bars across the two towers. Wing Lei, the Chinese restaurant at Wynn, received a Michelin star in the 2008 Las Vegas guide, the first for a Chinese restaurant in North America. SW Steakhouse faces the Lake of Dreams, and the restaurants of Encore open onto its gardens and pools. The Wynn Esplanade and Encore Esplanade hold the fashion houses.

Wellness

The Spa at Wynn and the Spa at Encore each have their own treatment rooms, pools and fitness centres. Several pools lie between the towers and the golf course. The Wynn Golf Club, redesigned by Tom Fazio with Steve Wynn on the old Desert Inn course, closed in 2017 for a planned development and reopened in 2019 as an 18-hole course, the only one on the Strip.

Weddings and events

Wynn and Encore have about 560,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, including a convention expansion opened in 2020 with ballrooms looking over the golf course. The Latour and Lafite ballrooms at Wynn and the Encore Ballroom are the principal rooms, with salons and boardrooms around them. The resort's wedding salons hold ceremonies from a few guests to about 120, and larger receptions move to the ballrooms or to the private rooms of the restaurants.

Location

The resort is at 3131 South Las Vegas Boulevard, between Sands Avenue and Desert Inn Road, opposite the Fashion Show mall and across the street from The Venetian and the Las Vegas Convention Center district. A taxi to Harry Reid International Airport, about 8 kilometres away, takes roughly 15 minutes.