Sunday, April 9, 2000 | 10:08 a.m.
Frank Catania remembers when a trio of noted mobsters ran the Desert Inn hotel and world-famous golf course that serves as a back yard to his home of 42 years.
It was an era longtime residents sentimentally refer to as "Old Vegas." Most gangsters had ties to casinos, and the Desert Inn was former bootlegger Moe Dalitz's turf.
In "Old Vegas" nobody would be brazen enough to push through a monorail that would skim the Desert Inn Estate property. Nor would homeowners be mired in a nasty lawsuit with the Desert Inn hotel.
Catania is certain of that.
The tranquil community that at one time was adjacent to desert land on two sides now stands on some of Clark County's most valued property between Paradise Road and the Las Vegas Strip.
Whether it's a proposed monorail or a time-share condominium, residents are constantly fending off intrusive projects pitched by developers, casinos and high-powered lawyers.
"This is what happens when it's homeowners and the land is valuable to casinos," said Laura FitzSimmons, a Las Vegas attorney representing the Desert Inn Homeowners Association. "They'll drive them out one way or the other."
Attorney Marc Rubinstein, who represents the Desert Inn hotel-casino, declined to comment for this story citing a company policy on pending litigation.
Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams has represented valley residents for 40 years. She, too, is miffed by the number of times Desert Inn Estates has wound up in lawsuits.
"I don't know what else they can do to these people; they've been so grossly mistreated," said Williams, who oversees the district and was the only commissioner to vote against the monorail.
Dalitz might have had a reputation as a big-time mobster, but residents say he catered to them and took pride in the Desert Inn, which in 1952 was one of the nation's premier golf courses and Nevada's first country club community.
"We had lights that decorated our wall and the Desert Inn paid the bill," Catania said. "If the plumbing went out, we'd call the DI and Moe would send someone out."
Dalitz is long gone and so are the days of pampering. Old Vegas has made way for new Las Vegas, and the corporations that have operated the hotel since Dalitz sold it in 1969 have been far less congenial toward residents.
Desert Inn residents quickly noticed a decline in their amenities as ownership was passed on to the Howard Hughes Corporation, ITT Corp. and finally to Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc..
The decorative lights were the first to go. Plumbing problems? Call a plumber. And forget about playing the Desert Inn golf course unless residents are willing to cough up the $250 green fees everybody else pays.
In retrospect the revocation of those privileges was inconsequential compared with what homeowners have endured during the last two years.
In December 1998 the Desert Inn Homeowners Association filed a lawsuit against Clark County after the commission approved a monorail route that comes within feet of some residents' doorsteps and inches from the community's wall.
The lawsuit says the MGM Grand-Bally's Monorail LLC, which proposed the private system, should pay residents fair market value for the property because once the train is built, their property values will plummet.
The least expensive home in the community runs at about $1 million, FitzSimmons said.
"We're alleging that the county commission and taxpayers will have to pay homeowners for destroying the value of the residences," FitzSimmons said. "Since the monorail has been approved, homes for sale there have been unable to sell."
The monorail was only the beginning of a recent series of legal tangles involving homeowners.
Last month the hotel that was once a friendly neighbor rankled residents when it filed lawsuits in federal court against about 50 residents in the Desert Inn Estates.
The 2-inch-thick documents were delivered shortly after homeowners refused to sign papers allowing the Desert Inn to build time-share condominiums across the fairway from their houses.
"They get them in every direction," FitzSimmons said. "Time-shares on the north and the monorail on the east. They're just chiseling away at them."
Desert Inn officials purchased 18 homes on the north end after Clark County decided to build the Desert Inn Super Arterial, which went across residents' front yards, forcing them out. The homes were razed leaving a strip of vacant lots.
Now the hotel-casino's parent company, Starwood, hopes an amendment to the community's codes, covenants and restrictions will soon make way for condominiums. The amendment would also increase the value of the Desert Inn, which Starwood is trying to sell.
Former state Sen. Chic Hecht, who also lives in Desert Inn Estates, said if the court allows Starwood to change the codes to allow a multiple-family complex, it would essentially be granting a zone change. And that, Hecht said, could set a dangerous precedent.
"The crux of the whole argument is they're bypassing local entities and the local government," Hecht said. "Any neighborhood casino, if they want property, can go through the legal shenanigans, get into federal court and bypass the local authorities. No one is safe in Clark County if they are allowed to proceed."
Williams said any company has the freedom to take a case to federal court, but she agreed with Hecht that the judge's decision will be monumental.
"I just can't believe the federal court would start zoning in a local jurisdiction," Williams said.
The Desert Inn's strategy to increase the value of its property has put homeowners at a disadvantage regardless of what happens in court.
Desert Inn officials claim that since they own the 18 lots along the super-arterial and have purchased 11 more in Hecht's neighborhood, they are the majority owners and can amend the codes.
Residents, however, say when the community was built in the 1950s the 18 lots were excluded from the Desert Inn Estates Homeowners Association. Therefore, the Desert Inn doesn't control the board.
But association members also claim that even though the lots are not part of the homeowners association, the owners still must comply with the Desert Inn Estates codes, which prohibit condominiums.
Residents fear if the Desert Inn takes over it will tear down the concrete block wall, leaving their homes exposed to busy city streets like Paradise Road and Sands Avenue.
But that is not the worst thing that can happen to the homeowners, 80 percent of whom are older than 70.
The Desert Inn still serves as the community's utility and, if the lawsuit becomes too ugly, the hotel-casino could cut off electricity and water to the homes.
"I think these people could be sitting in their homes without water," said Paula Quagliana, president of the Desert Inn Estates Homeowners Association.
Desert Inn sources have said the hotel-casino has no other projects planned aside from the condominiums and they have no intentions of running the residents out. They also have classified their neighbors as homeowners who overreact every time a project comes near them.
Quagliana has heard the argument that Desert Inn Estates residents are simply wealthy homeowners who want their way. But, she said, most homeowners purchased their houses in the 1950s for about $13,000.
Simply because the homes are worth $1 million apiece now, doesn't mean they're rich, homeowners said.
"We have a government that is completely out of control," Quagliana said. "No one should be able to come along and take people's property rights away."
Adrienne Packer covers county government for the Sun. She can be reached at (702) 259-2310 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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