Community · The Strip
Steve Wynn tells Neon Museum fundraiser crowd how The Mirage came together before its 1989 opening
At a Neon Museum fundraiser at the Golden Nugget, former casino executive Steve Wynn spent nearly two hours recalling how he assembled land and ideas for The Mirage, the 1989 resort that helped reshape the Strip.
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What happened
Former Las Vegas casino executive Steve Wynn, 84, spoke to a packed theater at the Golden Nugget on Thursday during a fundraiser for the Neon Museum, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Wynn once led the downtown resort, which the Review-Journal said he owned from 1967 to 1989.
For nearly two hours, Wynn described how The Mirage was developed, according to the Review-Journal. He was introduced by his daughter Gillian and shared the stage with his wife, Andrea Hissom, and Neon Museum executive director Aaron Berger.
How The Mirage site came together
Wynn told the audience that he gradually bought up Strip land until he had enough for The Mirage's footprint. He also said he drew heavily on the Broadway musical "South Pacific" when he conceived the resort, the Review-Journal reported.
The last piece of land
One of the final parcels belonged to Grace Hayes, a retired actress who did not want to sell the home she had shared with her late husband, screenwriter Robert Hopkins. Wynn said even Howard Hughes had tried several times to buy the property without success. "I'll never sell Hoppy's house," Wynn recalled Hayes telling him.
According to the Review-Journal, Wynn showed Hayes a model of the project and told her that her house sat where a waterfall would go. That water feature later became the resort's erupting volcano. After Hayes agreed to sell, Wynn had the land he needed to break ground on The Mirage in 1986.
The volcano and other attractions
The volcano, which sent up flaming natural gas clouds every 20 minutes, drew millions of viewers, the Review-Journal reported. Wynn also talked about signing illusionists Siegfried & Roy and about the resort's dolphin habitat, which Clark County marine biology students visited regularly. Wynn said the dolphins may have been the resort's most enduring legacy.
The resorts that followed
Around the time of the Mirage groundbreaking, Wynn worked with a group of investors and contractors who stayed with him through several major projects, the Review-Journal reported. Those projects are a large part of the valley's Strip development history.
- The Mirage, 3,044 rooms, opened November 1989
- Treasure Island, 2,085 rooms, opened October 1993
- Bellagio, 3,933 rooms, opened October 1998
- Wynn Las Vegas, 2,716 rooms, opened April 2005
- Encore Las Vegas, 2,034 rooms, opened December 2008
Where The Mirage stands now
The Mirage closed in July 2024 to make way for a Hard Rock Hotel, according to the Review-Journal. The guitar-shaped building is taking the old resort's place. The Review-Journal also noted that Wynn resigned as chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts in early 2018 after sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Why the Neon Museum hosted it
Berger did not say how much money the event raised, the Review-Journal reported, but he said he was pleased with the result. He said the evening fit the museum's work of capturing first-person stories, similar to its Vegas Voices program but in a more public setting.
"I have to say it was exactly what I hoped for," Berger told the Review-Journal. He added that the talk felt "just as revealing, just as intimate, just as engaging as if it was a one-on-one interview." More local arts and culture coverage is available in our community section.
What to watch next
- Whether the Neon Museum releases how much the Golden Nugget fundraiser raised, which Berger did not disclose.
- Progress on the guitar-shaped Hard Rock Hotel that is replacing The Mirage on the Strip.
- Additional first-person history recordings through the Neon Museum's Vegas Voices program.
