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Vegas Retold

The history of Wynn Las Vegas

Opened April 28, 2005

Nighttime Strip view with the Frontier sign at left and Desert Inn signs and a hotel tower at right.
Desert Inn frontage and tower at right in September 1989, before the larger resort grounds were redeveloped for Wynn and Encore; the Frontier sign is at left.

LBM1948 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Original photograph reproduced without editorial alteration; responsive overview and index displays may crop the presentation.

Wynn Las Vegas opened on April 28, 2005, as a new resort on the former Desert Inn resort and country-club grounds. It is a replacement development, rather than the Desert Inn under a new sign. The earlier hotel opened on April 24, 1950, according to UNLV’s archive. The bronze Wynn tower and the lost Desert Inn therefore represent different generations of a larger site, with different buildings and opening dates.

From the Desert Inn to Wynn

Wynn Resorts' 2006 account describes a resort assembled around rooms, a casino, restaurants, shopping, meeting space and an eighteen-hole golf course. Golf is an especially useful thread between the Desert Inn era and the resort that followed, although continuity of a resort activity does not mean the original course or buildings survived unchanged.

Encore joins the resort

The second tower arrived later. Encore broke ground immediately north of Wynn on April 28, 2006, and opened on December 22, 2008. The company's groundbreaking announcement described it as a second full-scale hotel integrated with its neighbour. Wynn and Encore therefore belong to the same developed resort complex, but their opening dates should not be collapsed into one.

The Lake of Dreams and the changing resort

One of Wynn's most revealing features is its Lake of Dreams: a landscaped performance setting framed by a manmade mountain and waterfall. The resort's account of designer Michael Curry's work dates the original lake presentation to 2005 and explains the idea as a succession of short scenes that could catch a couple's attention without taking over their evening. The 2020 reworking added new acts and technology to the same setting.

This helps explain a different kind of Las Vegas spectacle: landscape, dining and performance arranged together, with the lake functioning as a changeable stage.

For a history-minded visitor, the important comparison is between layers of development. The Desert Inn supplies the earlier resort site and golfing tradition; Wynn is the 2005 redevelopment; Encore is the 2008 expansion; and the lake's changing productions show that a resort continues to be revised after its opening. The surviving evidence is spread between the place itself, company opening records and photographs preserved by UNLV. Reading those together prevents a current Wynn photograph from standing in for a lost Desert Inn building, or an Encore view from being dated to Wynn's first day.

  1. Wynn Resorts: Encore groundbreaking announcement (2006)

  2. Wynn Resorts: 2008 results

  3. Wynn: Behind the Scenes of the Lake of Dreams

  4. Wynn and Encore: Directions

  5. UNLV: Wynn Las Vegas Scrapbook

  6. OpenStreetMap contributors: Wynn Las Vegas hotel tower

  7. UNLV: Toni and Wilbur Clark Papers

  8. Wynn Resorts: 2002 registration filing

What remains uncertain

  • The Desert Inn, Wynn and Encore are different stages of development on the wider resort property. A shared site does not establish that an earlier building survives.
  • Current entrances, show schedules and access arrangements should be checked with the operator.
  • Wynn’s 2006 retrospective gives April 28 for the Desert Inn’s opening and acquisition. UNLV dates the old hotel’s opening to April 24, 1950. Wynn’s contemporary filing distinguishes the April 28, 2000 purchase agreement from completion on June 22. This account preserves those distinctions.

This site through time

Replaced Desert Inn

2000 – 2005

Wynn Las Vegas opened in 2005 as a new resort developed on the former Desert Inn resort and country-club grounds after the old hotel and casino closed in 2000. The original Desert Inn hotel area lay farther north, where Encore was subsequently developed. This is redevelopment of a larger resort site, rather than a rename or a claim that the two hotel towers share an identical footprint.

Historical source — Wynn Resorts 2002 registration filing: Historical Development and financial Note 1, Desert Inn acquisition and August 28, 2000 closure; Wynn Las Vegas project on the acquired resort/golf-course land. Corroboration: April 28, 2006 Encore groundbreaking release places the original Desert Inn site north of Wynn and records Wynn opening April 28, 2005.

  • The former Desert Inn grounds included hotel buildings, golf course and associated land. This relationship does not project the current Wynn/Encore complex or its entrances back onto the old resort.

Shared or overlapping site with Encore Las Vegas

December 22, 2008

Encore opened in December 2008 as a separate hotel and casino immediately north of Wynn Las Vegas, connected through public spaces and resort facilities. The two hotel buildings form an integrated resort complex while retaining different opening dates and identities.

Historical source — December 22, 2008 opening-night release: Encore next door to Wynn, separate accommodations and arrival areas, connected meeting facilities. Wynn Resorts 2011 annual filing, Las Vegas Operations, describes the fully integrated resort.

  • Shared resort grounds and connections do not make the Wynn and Encore hotel towers one building or give them a single opening date.
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