The Flamingo

The Flamingo Las Vegas is a hotel casino located on the famed Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada and is owned and operated by Harrah's Entertainment. The property offers a 77,000 ft² (7,200 m²) casino along with 3,626 hotel rooms. The hotel is sometimes referred to as the pink hotel due to the structure's neon pink color. The 15 acre (61,000 m²) site's architectural theme is reminiscent of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne style of Miami and South Beach, with the central outdoor area housing an exhibit of flamingos as part of a wildlife habitat. It was the home of penguins, but they have since been moved to a Dallas zoo.

The Flamingo has a Las Vegas Monorail station at the rear of the property.
History

[edit] A Hollywood Beginning
The Flamingo site occupies 40 acres originally owned by one of Las Vegas' first settlers, Charles "Pops" Squires. Mr. Squires paid $8.75 an acre for the land. In 1944, Margaret Folsom bought the tract for $7,500 from Squires, and she then later sold it to Billy Wilkerson. Billy Wilkerson was the owner of the Hollywood Reporter as well as some very popular nightclubs in the Sunset Strip: Cafe Trocadero, Ciro's and La Rue's.

In 1945, Wilkerson purchased 33 acres on the west side of U.S. Route 91, about one mile (1.6 km) south of the Last Frontier in preparation for his vision. Wilkerson then hired George Vernon Russell to design a hotel that was more in the European style and something other than the "sawdust joints" on Fremont Street. He planned a hotel with luxurious rooms, a spa, health club, showroom, golf course, nightclub and an upscale restaurant. Due to the high wartime materials costs, however, Wilkerson began to run into financial problems almost at once, finding himself $400,000 short and hunting for new financing.


[edit] Enter Bugsy
In late 1945, mobster Benjamin (Bugsy) Siegel and his "partners" came to Las Vegas, after the fledgling resort city piqued Siegel's interest due to its legalized gambling and its off-track betting. Siegel at the time held a large interest in Trans America Wire, a racing publication.[citation needed]

Siegel began when he purchased The El Cortez on Fremont Street for $600,000 and later sold it for a $166,000 profit. At the same time, Siegel and his organized crime associates learned Wilkerson had run out of money on his project. They used the profits from the El Cortez sale to influence Wilkerson to accept new partners. Siegel and such partners as Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky invested $1 million in the new property, allowing Wilkerson to keep a one-third ownership stake and operational control.[citation needed]

Siegel took over the final phases of construction and convinced more of his underworld associates to invest in the project. The problem was, Siegel had no experience in construction or design, causing costs to mount from constant changes and gouging from construction firms and suppliers — including, it was reputed, workers who delivered by day, stole by night, and resold the next day. Siegel may actually have bought some of the same materials twice thanks to this kind of scheming.[citation needed]

Siegel lost patience with the rising costs, and his notorious outbursts unnerved his construction foreman. Reputedly, Siegel told him, "Don't worry — we only kill each other."[citation needed]


[edit] The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino
Siegel finally opened, as The Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino, at a total cost of $6 million on December 26, 1946. Billed as the world's most luxurious hotel[citation needed], the 105-room property and first luxury hotel on the strip,[1] was built seven miles (11 km) from Downtown Las Vegas, with a large sign built in front of the construction site announcing it was a William R. Wilkerson project, with Del Webb Construction as the prime contractor and Richard Stadelman (who later made renovations to the El Rancho Las Vegas) the architect.

Siegel named the resort after his girlfriend Virginia Hill, who loved to gamble and whose nickname was Flamingo---a nickname Siegel gave her due to her long, skinny legs.[2] Organized crime king Lucky Luciano wrote in his memoir, however, that Siegel once owned an interest in the Hialeah race track and viewed the flamingos who populated nearby as an omen.




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