Neon Museum salvages another iconic Las Vegas Strip sign
Roger Thomas has a story about gambling at the Dunes. Before he can tell it, he wonders aloud, “I hope the statute of limitations has passed on this.”
Thomas is safe. The story is set in a casino that was imploded 32 years ago.
A world-renowned interior designer, Thomas is the son of E. Parry Thomas, who along with Jerry Mack financed the construction of the Dunes. This is the same Thomas and Mack for whom UNLV’s arena is named. With Thomas and Mack as executives, the Bank of Las Vegas was the first financial institution to offer loans to casinos.
The Dunes was one of them, as Thomas and Mack led the effort to change state and federal laws to allow publicly traded companies to own gaming properties.
With the Dunes was an iconic brand in the evolutionary days of Vegas resorts. The resort opened in 1955, a popular tourist destination until it was destroyed infamously in 1993. The Dunes might be as memorable for its demolition as any event prior, as then-owner Steve Wynn staged the simulated firing of a cannon ball into the hotel.
Even by Vegas’s lofty implosion standards (The Landmark event was captured in the movie ”Mars Attacks”), the Dunes’ fiery scene was next-level.
Countless Dunes memories and artifacts were buried in the rubble. But not everything is lost. The hotel’s entrance sign, the last known sign salvaged from the property, is being returned to the public at The Neon Museum beginning Sept. 26. Thomas will be at the VIP re-lighting, having helped fund the sign’s restoration. The piece will be on display among all other vintage signs at The Neon Museum.
Las Vegas’s Hartlauer Signs spent five months restoring the sign, repairing the onion-shaped dome silhouette, retracing the animation pattern and recreating its orange façade. The Sept. 26 event is the first time the sign will be lit since just before implosion 32 years ago. The Neon Museum Executive Director Aaron Berger says of the new/vintage addition, “The Dunes sign represents a time when the city was rapidly reinventing itself through spectacle and imagination.”
Thomas, who designed the Bellagio and also Treasure Island early in his career, remembers the Dunes well. He dropped into the casino one night when he was 16 years old.
The future designer was a fresh high school graduate (he entered kindergarten two years early), and had just obtained his driver’s license.
“I remember driving there, and I reached into my pocket and found a dime or a quarter,” Thomas says. “I was passing a slot machine, and put it in. I won $2.”
The teenager avoided detection and ventured to the table games.
“I took the $2 to the roulette table, not knowing that the very worst odds in the house,” Thomas says. “I put it on red, which was my favorite color between red and black.” Winner!
“Ten minutes later I walked away with $120,,” Thomas says, “A fortune. And that was it for gambling, for Roger. I figured, no one is ever going to be a winner of 10 to 25 cents to the proportion of $120. I will never equal this story.”
Thomas still wonders, “Why I wasn’t arrested is beyond me. I’m sure I was in a jacket.”
Thomas is still on a hot streak where it counts. All of Wynn’s resorts, including Wynn/Encore, bear his imprint.
Bellagio was what he considers his first great project. “I don’t consider Treasure Island a great project,” he says. “But Bellagio was where I cut my teeth, and being responsible for everything stem to stern, basically, and where I learned that the best way to design a large project with Steve and Elaine Wynn was to to find great designers, make the (stuff), and if the (stuff) stuck, we would go with that. Bellagio was the first time we did that.”
Of the resort Bellagio replaced, Thomas says, “The Dunes was both a finale and a beginning.”
New Music Alert
Frankie Moreno’s latest single, “Hollow Hymn,” is out as of 9 p.m. Tuesday on at the iTunes Store. “It probably isn’t the song you’ll blast at a party,” Moreno says. “(But) I hope you feel something when you hear it. That’s all we can ever hope for as songwriters.”
Cool Hang Alert
The terrific vocalist Kelly Christian performs from 8-11 p.m. Mondays at International Bar at the Westgate. No-cover music is presented nightly at the open lounge, just off the casino entrance. If you run into the Elvis statue, you’re in the wrong direction. Go to WestgateResorts.com for intel.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.