Las Vegas Loses an Icon as Strip’s Desert Inn Closes

The Desert Inn resort, a Las Vegas Strip icon that opened in 1950, officially closed at 2 p.m. Monday under gray skies and a sprinkling of raindrops, marking the end of one of the Strip’s most legendary properties.

Howard Hughes bought the resort when management tried to move him out of his penthouse on New Year’s Eve to make way for high rollers. The rich and famous teed off on the golf course. Entertainers such as Frank Sinatra played its Crystal Showroom. And in the ‘70s, it was the setting for the TV series “Vegas.”

In recent years, however, the relatively small 715-room resort struggled to compete with the 3,000- to 5,000-room, billion-dollar mega-resorts along the Strip.

Developer Steve Wynn, former owner of Mirage Resorts Inc., purchased the property in April and plans to replace it with a mega-resort with two 59-story hotel towers.

The weather matched the mood of the last guests and out-of-work employees as they trickled out the hotel’s Palm Tower doorway.

With only 300 rooms still operating, the casino nearly was deserted on its last weekend.