Like Las Vegas, only greener

A$260-million resort opening on New Year’s Day in San Diego County is beginning to look a lot like Vegas.

The 397-room Barona Valley Ranch Resort & Casino has 2,000 slot machines; 52 gaming tables with blackjack, poker and other pursuits; VIP high-roller sections; five restaurants and a food court; and a theme decor based on Native American culture and 1930s-era California ranches. There’s even the requisite wedding chapel by the lake.

The Vegas touches are not surprising because the development was crafted by Bergman, Walls & Associates, architects of the gambling city’s Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas and Mirage resorts.

The owners are the Barona Band of Mission Indians, who have run a casino for about eight years and a highly regarded 18-hole public golf course for nearly two years on their 7,000-acre reservation northeast of San Diego, about 12 miles south of Ramona off California 67.

The new resort-casino is next to the golf course; the old casino, less than half the size of the new one, is being shut down.

The design is a tribute to the Barona Indians who bought the land in 1932. The casino is fashioned after a barn, with bales of hay in a silo and a 20-by-20-foot fieldstone fireplace in the center. Five statues of Native American figures by Denny Haskew stand at the entrance.

In the past, the casino’s core customers have been local. With the new resort, the owners hope to draw visitors from along the West Coast up to the Pacific Northwest and east to Arizona, said spokeswoman Jennifer Barry.

Will it draw from the Las Vegas market too? “Definitely,” Barry said, although she added quickly: “It’s not a replacement for Las Vegas.”

The resort lacks two key Vegas ingredients: a showroom and, for now, a liquor license (pending with the county). But it does offer what it calls “jackpot dining,” a holdover from the old casino.

“You order from the restaurant menu, and they roll out a cart with a little vase with flowers and linen to your slot machine or game table,” Barry explains.

Room rates begin at $79 per night on weekdays, $129 on weekends. There are 33 luxury suites priced from $250 to $1,000 per night. (877) 287-2624, www.barona.com.