RISMEDIA, March 24, 2011—Real estate lovers find bad news upon the impending demise of both the Las Vegas hotel and casino where the Rat Pack boys entertained the customers and each other, and the Gold Coast mansion that—according to legend—was the inspiration for Daisy Buchanan’s home in “The Great Gatsby.”
In New York, Daisy’s fabled mansion overlooks the Long Island Sound and was the party place for celebrities like Groucho Marx, politicians including Averill Harriman, royalty like the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and, of course, the American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of “The Great Gatsby.” Like hundreds of early 1900s mansions that are too big and expensive to survive in today’s world of high labor, tax and utility costs, “Lands End”—at a cost of $4,500 a day to maintain—is scheduled to be torn down over the next few months and its13 acres of land will be subdivided into five home-site parcels.
In “Sin City,” the Sahara Hotel and Casino (“The Jewel in the Desert”) was opened in 1952 by California bingo-game king Milton Prell with a Moroccan theme and statues of camels guarding the front entrance. It was the sixth hotel to be constructed in Las Vegas and is one of the last survivors of the Rat Pack era. With the considerable assistance of star power like Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, The Beatles, Ann-Margaret and Don Rickles, the Sahara was the hottest place in Vegas back in the 1950s and 60s. The hotel was upgraded many times over the years with more rooms, a 24-story tower and even a roller coaster.
However today much of the gambling action has moved down “The Strip” and the Rat Pack has been replaced by magician Rick Thomas and a giant burrito that is free if you can eat the whole thing. Although demolition is not definite, most Las Vegas real estate professionals believe it will end up as a dust pile unless the Nevada economy improves. The closing date will be May 16.
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