The Riviera gave the young Strip a taller silhouette. It opened on April 20, 1955, with a nine-story hotel and Liberace at the piano. The opening-night newspaper promised an orchestra, a ballet and an elaborate showroom program: entertainment was part of the resort’s identity from its first evening.
Before the opening: the Casa Blanca project
The project had earlier been planned as the Casa Blanca, before financing and licensing difficulties brought changes in the development group. That working name should not be mistaken for a separate casino operating here in 1952. The Riviera that welcomed guests in 1955 soon faced bankruptcy. Its glamorous opening and its early financial trouble belong to the same story.
A resort assembled over decades
What eventually disappeared was much more than the original tower. Successive additions created a layered resort: company filings date the North tower to 1955, South to 1967, Monte Carlo to 1974, San Remo to 1977 and Monaco to 1988. Changes to the buildings and frontage allowed the Riviera to keep trading as larger resorts transformed the Strip around it.
A long life on stage
The stages carried much of its public personality. Liberace’s opening engagement was followed over the decades by performers including Marlene Dietrich and Orson Welles. Later production shows included Splash, La Cage and Crazy Girls. UNLV preserves show files, architectural records, menus and the first general manager’s scrapbook. Those collections document different periods of the resort, rather than a single unchanging version of the Riv.
Closure and demolition were different events
The end of hotel and casino operation came on May 4, 2015. Contemporary reporters watched guests and employees leave as the doors closed around noon. Riviera Holdings had sold the land and structures to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that February. Sale, closure and demolition were separate events: the resort stopped operating in 2015, while demolition followed in 2016. The Monaco tower imploded on June 14; it was a later addition, not the original 1955 tower.
The land after the Riviera
The purchase served convention-center expansion rather than another Riviera casino. The surrounding land was subsequently handled in parts. LVCVA’s 2023 renovation announcement identified a separate ten-acre Riviera parcel for sale, and its 2025 financial report records the sale of ten surplus acres at Las Vegas Boulevard and Elvis Presley Boulevard. The former resort should therefore not be treated as one surviving building or equated with the entire present convention campus. The historical photograph below shows its illuminated frontage in October 2003, twelve years before closure.