Homes with character: See some of Las Vegas’ most famous — and infamous — houses

By Ric Anderson

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 | 2 a.m.

Las Vegas is notorious for not honoring its history — a reputation that has become cemented in videos of casino implosions — but the city's past can still be found in its neighborhoods if you know where to look.

Here's a self-guided tour of some of the more interesting, colorful and notable houses in the city.

972 Vegas Valley Drive

Custom touches like bulletproof doors and windows wouldn't appeal to every homeowner. Then again, few face as many professional hazards as Las Vegas casino executive Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal did.

Rosenthal, the inspiration for the lead character in the 1995 movie “Casino,” survived a murder attempt when a bomb exploded in his car only a couple of blocks away from his three-bedroom home. Things happen to guys who are connected to the mob, like Rosenthal was.

So Rosenthal took precautions at home, including hidden gun safes in addition to the bulletproofing. He also had rooms soundproofed so that federal agents couldn’t listen in on his private conversations.

The house recently was on the market for $777,000.

4675 Balfour Drive

Rosenthal’s one-time running buddy, Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro, purchased this home in 1974.

He was still listed as the owner when he was found beaten to death in 1986, buried in an Indiana cornfield.

Spilotro — on whom Joe Pesci’s character in “Casino” was based — had been implicated in seven murders and suspected of committing as many as 25, according to the Chicago Tribune. He was murdered after he ran afoul of Chicago mobsters he had represented in Las Vegas.

3515 Cochise Lane

Although Rosenthal lived near the 10th tee at Las Vegas Country Club, the producers of the movie “Casino” placed their lead character in a home on another course – Las Vegas National, on Desert Inn Road near Eastern Avenue.

In the "How's this for a coincidence?" file, an actual casino exec who had been targeted by a car bomb had once lived there — Irving "Ash" Resnick. In 1974, several sticks of dynamite were found under Resnick's car at Caesars Palace. And like the "Casino" character, Resnick faced allegations of ties to organized crime.

Twenty years after the movie was released, the home on Cochise Lane looks much like it did in the film. It’s a living piece of Las Vegas’ glitzy history, with such features as rock pillars, sculpted shrubbery and colored ground lighting.

6629 S. Pecos Road

For decades, Casa de Shenandoah was Wayne Newton's residence. But like some other Las Vegas properties, it has an interesting history.

The house sold in 2010 to an owner who planned to turn it into a museum in an attempt to help Newton dig out of bankruptcy. But the museum plan stalled, which led to a legal saga that resulted in Newton moving out of the property in 2013. For a while, the place was known as Sunset Spring Ranch.

But the Casa de Shenandoah name returned in 2014 amid reports that Newton was moving back in and that plans for a museum on the property were back in motion.

5150 S. Pecos Road

Just a couple of miles north of Casa de Shenandoah, near Tropicana, is a home that looks fairly nondescript from the road but has a distinctive shape when viewed from above. We’ll let you decide why it’s become somewhat renowned in the community, and we’ll let you use your imagination about its nickname.

5460 S. Eastern Ave.

Drive by this rancher just north of Russell Road, which is now a real estate office, and you'll notice a red fox painted on the sign near the street. Why the fox? Local legend has it that the people who bought the home after comedian Redd Foxx moved out of it and died believed that Foxx's spirit was haunting it. Their theory was that Foxx, from beyond the grave, was upset that people no longer knew the place was his. So the owners painted the fox on the sign, and the haunting apparently stopped.

2408 Palomino Lane

Ted Binion, the second son of Las Vegas gaming pioneer Benny Binion, lived here until his death in 1998. The 6,600-square-foot home has been empty ever since.

Ted Binion had operated the Horseshoe casino with his brother Jack, but drug addiction led to him being banned from the operation. His death initially was attributed to an overdose, but his live-in girlfriend and a companion of hers later were charged with drugging and suffocating them. The two later were acquitted.

3970 Spencer Street

Built by the owner of a company that marketed post-apocalyptic homes, this house exists mostly underground. Except for some vents, climate control units and a housing for a staircase and elevator above-ground, you might not know it exists.

Below the surface and out of sight, though, lies a home with such amenities as a fountain and waterfalls, a putting green, a 360-degree mural and a yard area.

The original version of this story erroneously listed the year of Ted Binion’s death. The mistake has been corrected.