Thursday, June 5, 2003 | 8:19 a.m.
Tracy Jordan is heading east on Lake Las Vegas.
From the back of a 36-foot gondola, he looks ahead to the dusty mountains of Arizona. A Pontevecchio-inspired bridge crosses the lake behind him.
At 10 a.m. on a weekday, fish are jumping. Kelly-green turf hugs tidy shorelines. Golfers tee off, construction workers build homes, assemble terrain and mill through the unfinished MonteLago Village.
Temperatures will reach 109 degrees. The boat's canopy and morning breeze offer little salvation from the heat. But eventually the sun will set and romance will settle in.
"As soon as that sun dips behind that ridge of mountain, it's quite pleasant," Jordan, co-owner of Gondola Adventures Inc., said. "The most beautiful of all is when the moon is out.
"I had my first wedding proposal the other night ... the lady said 'maybe.'"
Placing gondolas on the man-made lake connecting the Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas, to the Hyatt Regency to million-dollar homes, golf courses and a corporate-built, Italian-like village, has been a longtime dream for the 44-year-old.
As do shop workers in MonteLago Village and others tied to the Henderson resort, Jordan zealously foresees a profitable and scenic future as the village begins its expansion into a bustling small city.
In an ideal world, tourists and locals will stroll the village's cobblestone-like streets and its manufactured shoreline. They'll drink in its bars, nightclubs and taverns, dine in its restaurants, peruse its shops and live in its apartments.
"At The Venetian it's just a ride," said Jordan, a self-described song-and-dance man with a theater background. "Here it's an experience. It's an ecosystem. It's an entire environment they're creating."
Illusion is the acceptable replacement at the Mediterranean-inspired resort built 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip.
As Jordan explains, "Unless you're an inveterate gambler, once you're done on the Strip, what else is there to do?"
Ride gondolas, toss back chocolates and sip champagne, he hopes.
"You get a lot of birthdays, anniversaries, wedding proposals," Jordan said. "There's coves and canyons that we explore ... Everybody wants to know, of course, which is Celine's house, which is there, where the construction and white canopy is."
Powered by silent electric motors, his two boats, "Serenissima" and "La Fenice," cruise leisurely up to four knots (almost five miles an hour). Champagne and chocolates are served. Basket lunch or gourmet dinner cruises are available. Jordan, or any one of his 10 gondoliers, will sing Italian verse.
"It's just stunning," said Henderson resident Randy Gronert, who took his girlfriend on a sunset cruise last weekend.
"At night everything is lit up. The bridge is all lit up. The sky was reflecting on the water. He's on the cutting edge of something big."
Jordan seems to think so. He moved to Las Vegas from Dallas 13 years ago and performed at the Tropicana's "Folies Bergere" before leaving to become a gondolier at The Venetian when it opened in 1999.
"When we saw The Venetian was going to be built, every singer in town was saying, 'You can't have Venice without gondolas. You can't have gondolas without gondoliers,' " Jordan said. "It was an eye-opening opportunity to see that this is a great profession."
Less than two years after starting at The Venetian, Jordan learned of the Gondola Society of America and partnered up with its president, Greg Mohr, to form Gondola Adventures. Last spring they placed their first boat into Lake Carolyn in Las Colinas, Texas. "We bid on that, got the contract and I said, 'You know, there is this place in Las Vegas,' " Jordan said with a laugh.
"Lake Las Vegas is ideal. I look for venues that have the right mix of ingredients: as close to possible to year-round operation, having an area that has a nice mix of tourist traffic as well as local.
"It's helpful to have hotels and restaurants on the water for which you can do catering and dinner cruises."
And becoming a gondolier and entrepreneur who sings Italian love songs to couples on a lake in the desert doesn't surprise him, he said.
"I have done more things that I never thought I'd do in my life. That opportunity has been because of Las Vegas. I love this town."
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