Just before Valentine’s Day, another Las Vegas hotel went down in an implosion. It wasn’t a Strip legend, but the Clarion, just off the Strip, had its own fascinating history.
It opened in 1970 as the Royal Inn with 200 rooms. Its owners hoped to capitalize on its proximity to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Soon they sold its casino operations to the team of Michael Gaughan and Frank Toti, who later had the Barbary Coast. Gaughan went on to build the Coast Casinos and now owns the SouthPoint.
In 1979, Royal Inns of America sold the property to Horn and Hardart. Some of you may remember when that company owned the Automat in the heart of New York City. At the old Automat, you could buy items ala carte, like a cafeteria. Horn and Hardart increased the number of rooms, renovated the place, and renamed it the Royal Americana, with a New York theme. For a while its commercial spokesman was the great boxer Rocky Graziano.
But this incarnation didn’t last long, either. The Americana was losing money in the midst of the early 1980s recession. Its owners sold to an investment group, which turned it into the Paddlewheel. It catered to families with children long before Las Vegas turned that into a marketing campaign in the early 1990s … and, like Las Vegas, moved away from that theme to emphasize its appeal to adults. It also had a riverboat look to it, but that was kind of old-hat: the Showboat had opened in 1954 and the Holiday Casino had done something similar in the 1970s before Harrah’s renovated it.
Finally, in 1992, at an auction, the hotel’s most famous owner, Debbie Reynolds, acquired it. By then she had already been in movies, television, and nightclubs, and in Las Vegas showrooms, for four decades. She had even attended the opening of the Tropicana in 1957; her then-husband, Eddie Fisher, was the first performer in the showroom. Unfortunately, she had trouble getting financing for renovations, a new showroom, and a museum of her memorabilia. She did eventually perform there and install the museum. But when the casino’s operator pulled out, she didn’t have the financing to take it over. She and her Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino went into bankruptcy.
The Clarion
Royal Inn
Debbie Reynolds
Greek Isles
The next owner was a little bit different: the World Wrestling Federation. But its plans for a wrestling-themed hotel fell through. The next owner turned it into the Greek Isles, and tried to build a theme around that. Then, in July 2007, came the biggest plans: a new owner who wanted to more than double the number of hotel rooms, vastly expand the casino, and add a convention area. But the Great Recession wasn’t far away, and bankruptcy followed. It finally became a Clarion Hotel, but lasted in that guise for less than a year and a half.
Now the building is gone. Lorenzo Doumani, part of a longtime Las Vegas family, bought the property and made the decision to implode the Clarion … or the Debbie Reynolds … or the Greek Isles … or the Royal Americana. And that says a lot about why, although it’s sad to see older hotels go, fewer tears were shed over this implosion than some of the previous ones. A lot of people tried, and it survived, but the property never quite made it.
Nevada Yesterdays is written by Associate Professor Michael Green of UNLV, and narrated by former Senator Richard Bryan. Supported by Nevada Humanities