The visions Steve Wynn had for Las Vegas 15 years ago were not only dreamed, but brought to startling reality. The Mirage, although now blended into the Las Vegas Strip like the Sands Tower was back in the 60's, when everyone was building one story ranch style casino/hotels. And a flamboyant millionaire by the name of Hughes saw the Landmark tower as an atomic mushroom cloud rising off the desert floor (the theme for the still standing Stardust sign), what a fool he must have sounded when he came to his board of directors with this idea asking for millions.

If it wasn't for his millions to back up his visions, he would have been out of a job and out of town right then and there, after all, look how Bugsy Siegal, another Vegas visionary, wound up when he tried to make his Vegas dream come true (assuming room temperature on Virgina Hill's couch). When Steve Wynn went to his banker when he was only a hired hand at the Golden Nugget and asked for a loan to buy a piece of desert that wasn't more than an overflow parking lot for Caesar's Palace and bounding a barely new paved 2 lane road called Flamingo and a dusty 2 lane highway seldom traveled from California in the summertime. When he sold it for 100 times what he paid for it, the next time he asked for money, the banker perked up and listened. The request was ridiculous but with the financial wizardry resembling a Siegfried and Roy show, he managed to put across the idea of a small lake and volcano as the cornerstone of a casino/hotel, rather than spending the millions on just a warehouse casino with some bothersome rooms built more for convenience rather than looks and comfort. He could have built a nice little garden in front with a fountain and save the rest of the million dollar space for a larger casino and that glass canopy with fountains and tropical plants and palm trees, what a waste that was. That was a good 100 slots and 20 or so table games right there. But he was determined and he succeeded beyond anyone's dreams.

The Treasure Island? Are you kidding? Another lake this time with lifesize boats at a million bucks apiece? Then you want to pay guys to blow them up, a few thousand a week to take a swan dive and all that gas and fire? Come on, now you wasted all that space next door, why push it and do it again? But push it and push it he did and the Treasure Island has been a steady winner ever since. But the Bellagio was his crown jewel. Anyone who's stepped into the conservatory or stared at the Chahouley for hours marvelling at it's simple elegance and intricacy, or strolled around the lake (now there was a real waste of real estate as far as the stockholders were concerned, not to mention the art gallery as well as all the art he collected for the entire casino and restaurants. If you've ever looked at the italian marble mosaic floors or the huge vases in the shopping area, the Picasso restaurant and the Japanese signature fishtank and the French Le Circue is impeccable. But he had to have everything, as Van Gogh couldn't finish a painting without Cadmium Blue or Burnt Sienna, Wynn couldn't finish the Bellagio until every detail was in place, until the dream was complete in every detail he dreamt it, no corners could be cut, no budget shrunk, no second hand anything. (It was a fact that over $30,000 was spent to finish and deliver his Italian made Birdseye Maplewood motor boat that would run his VIP's around the lake as they sipped French Champagne from the dock at the Picasso Restaurant). Eventually he was to have water skiers imported from Miami Beach doing ski shows during the water shows and that was just the start of what would have been the most elegant casino/hotel in the world when he was completely done with the Bellagio.

Believe it or not, what you see is only part of what he invisioned. But his visions went further as he built the Monte Carlo as a stepping off point at a full high market shopping mall and who can imagine what else built between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo. What his entire dream for the Las Vegas strip would have been will have to remain the stories of speculation for years to come as we move into what promises to be a dull, boring, low-end, grind-them-up spit-them-out, don't-waste-any-space-that won't- generate-as-much-as-a-slot machine-in-the-same-place sort of mentality of the MGM. And if you don't believe me, walk through the MGM itself and tell me if it's really more than a mile long warehouse full of slots and tables, then walk into Bally's and tell me it's not the exact same idea as the MGM, after all, those are the only two main players left in Vegas.

So what happened? Well it's simple, the MGM figured they couldn't beat Wynn at his own game, at least not in class or style (The only reason the MGM is green is the light bulbs were cheaper than white since they were left over from a botched St. Patricks Day parade in Chicago due to too much snow and too much green beer). And that the more Wynn built, the worse the MGM looked and since it was too late to class up their places, they bought out the only places WITH class and will do all they can to bring it down to the level of all of their now existing properties. That way, they won't have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to compete with Wynn's future plans.

So Kerkorian made an offer, not a great offer if you look at the long projections of the Wynn properties, but a decent one as far as the stockholders and board of directors were concerned. But at the $17 a share offer, they were willing to stand with Steve, through thick or thin. Then Kerkorian said $19 a share and Wynn's people said "Steve's the man, we go where he goes, no deal" so Kerkorian sucked it up and said $21 a share and they gave Wynn a comp to the coffee shop and told him to clean out his desk after he had his lunch, and oh yeah, please don't steal any of the pens or company stationary on the way out.

This is not a company of vision, but of greed and bottom lines. What you will see is basically nothing. And I mean NOTHING. Not a penny spent anywhere new, no new projects, no more building. The Aladdin will probably be the last major casino on the strip for YEARS. Room prices will level out once the service reaches new lows in standards and upkeep. Many executives working for the Mirage, T.I., Bellagio, Golden Nugget (the first hotel to upgrade the rundown downtown area ever and still the only place downtown with any class since Steve took it over) are now out of jobs, replaced by overworked, underpaid, inexperienced break-in executives who they can hire three to one to replace the Mirage execs. and still get half the work done in twice the time at half the output and half the price and absolutely no class.

There was a reason you hired Frank Lloyd Wright to build a house for you if you had millions. Because you wanted to see and be seen and exist in the world of a visionary since you could never invision it or build it yourself. To the MGM, just because you can still build four walls allot cheaper and still accomplish the same outcome (as far as they're concerned, shelter from the elements and a place to sleep). But when you see a Wright house, you know you're looking at art, at a vision, at class, at a genuine dream come true, not just a house. From now on, don't come to Vegas to "see" the strip, just come for a place to sleep and stay cool and dry between losing your money in the MGM or Park Place casinos, after all, they're the only players that'll be left in town in a year or two and then they'll decide what's best for Las Vegas, and the visitors, and the locals, and set new lows that will reverberate throughout the industry. When someone figures a way to make something cheaper, everyone eventually jumps on the bandwagon unless they have their own visions and believe me, these people have no vision besides their Christmas bonuses and what color to order the Mercedes.

We all knew it was the money all along, we're not stupid, but when we saw what was possible with the right money in the right places, with the right person coming along at the right time. Steve Wynn was someone that pulled at the hearts of the dreamers inside all of us and what we always said to ourselves our whole lives, young or old, "If I only had the money, man, what I could do with it, why I'd build a........." Well that was Steve Wynn!!

He once said to himself when he was young "If I only had the money, man what I could do with it, why I'd build a....... "but unlike the millions of us who are doomed to daydream of these places while we toil away at reality, he toiled away at his daydream and actually lived it. "And if Las Vegas lets him go anywhere else, someother half-assed town in need of a major overhaul, a rebuilding, a new dream by a new dreamer will reap the benefits of a Steve Wynn while we muddle in mediocrity of mindless gambling joints once again." And we'll have to look at the strip, now frozen in time, knowing no more dreams to come, no more visions to look forward to. We've managed to pay our way out of dreams and buy out the dreamers.