Elaine Wynn, Mirage co-founder, on hand for resort’s last day

Elaine Wynn remembers the initial two guests to check in at the Mirage, the Las Vegas Strip resort that she and her former husband, Steve Wynn, co-founded nearly 35 years ago to bring a tropical oasis to the Nevada desert.

A cream-colored Rolls Royce pulled up the hotel’s drive, manned by Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Uwe Ludwig Horn — the iconic entertainment duo known as Siegfreid & Roy that would have a long-term residency at the Mirage — and two of their famed white tigers in the back, Wynn recalled.

“Siegfreid and Roy escorted them on their blinged-up leashes into the property to be admitted officially as our first guests,” she said Wednesday during a closing ceremony for the Mirage, which will soon be converted into the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and Guitar Hotel Las Vegas. “But then something happened that was really quite remarkable. It had never happened to my knowledge before and I don’t think that it’s ever happened since.”

That event was the official launch of the resort in 1989, Wynn said, when she and other members of the founding team opened the doors and watched as the crowds poured in. The mob rushed in, she remembered, saw the Mirage’s atrium — a lively, domed area filled with greenery and sunlight — stopped and started to applaud.

“They were clapping,” Wynn said at Wednesday’s event under the Mirage’s porte cochere, just outside from the lobby and the atrium itself. “I said, ‘We are getting a standing ovation.’ And it was such a magnificent validation of the work and all of the energy and all the time and love that was invested in this property.”

Wynn and others reminisced Wednesday on the Mirage’s history in an emotional ceremony ahead of its shuttering. Workers in blue or brown polos and chef’s whites were there to bid the resort farewell. Also on hand were guests who walked in and out of the lobby to see it one last time before the official closure at 11 a.m.

The groundbreaking resort, which hosted overnight guests for the last time Sunday, was purchased in 2022 by Hard Rock International, owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, from previous owner MGM Resorts International.

Jim Allen, chairman of Hard Rock International and CEO of Seminole Gaming, today chose to talk less of his company’s plans for the property and more of the Mirage’s lasting legacy.

It’s with a heavy heart that Hard Rock has to see the Mirage’s many loyal employees move to other Strip venues, Allen said, though he noted that the company has committed to over $80 million in severance and hopes that employees will return when the property reopens — an event currently slated for 2027.

“Casinos were casinos, and, frankly, that’s what drives the ability to create a return on investment,” he said. “But this is a true destination. And closing it today is a very humbling experience.”

The Mirage is notably one of the first megaresorts to settle on the Strip, and Allen seemed to recognize that Wednesday by lauding it as an “integrated resort.”

“Who would have put dolphins in a casino? he asked the audience, referring to Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, a popular Mirage attraction that closed within the past couple of years. “Or white tigers?”

Until the Mirage opened, Las Vegas was blind to all that it could be — how grown up, how magnificent and how visionary it could be, former Mayor Jan Jones Blackhurst said at today's event, which also included remarks from Mirage President Joe Lupo and gaming industry leader Alan Feldman.

Over the several years after the Mirage opened, Las Vegas was in a constant state of flux with buildings being demolished and replaced by something “bigger and more magnificent,” she said.

“The Mirage taught us anything we could envision we could become,” Jones Blackhurst said.

Construction to transition the Mirage into the Hard Rock — which will include the building of a nearly 700-foot guitar-shaped hotel tower — will begin almost immediately, Allen said.

As far as what will stay or be gutted from the property, Allen said he had received the most inquiries on the atrium and the Villas at the Mirage. Although he would not share details on the fate of the former, he did say the latter will remain. The villas, opulent and private suites for guests, are legendary, he said.

“The future is a bright one in front of us,” Allen said.

Each speaker made a point to applaud the hard work and dedication of the Mirage’s thousands of employees, who could be seen taking photos after the event with each other, Wynn and more. Screens all around also thanked team members for an amazing 34 years.

Almost 140 “Day One” employees, meaning those who had been with the Mirage since it opened, were present for the event, officials said.

That included Cynthia Brass, who has worked in the Mirage restaurant now called the Pantry during her tenure of more than three decades, and “loved every minute of it.”

“I love my staff, my co-workers,” she told the Sun. “They’re family — I mean, we spend more time with them than our husbands. We get in our little fights, (but) the next day or the next few minutes, we’re like, ‘everything’s good.’ It’s a bittersweet moment right now — holding back the tears.”

There’s great teamwork at the Mirage, Brass said, and she has enjoyed her managers through the years. She’s going to miss all of her customers, Brass added, more than two dozen of whom she said she’s seen regularly.

“I want to thank everybody that I knew and worked with and made this possible,” she said. “Just God bless and thank you and I wish everybody the best.”

Brass, 65, said she opted for early retirement with the close of her virtually lifelong workplace.

“I’m just going to enjoy life and visit the new place when it opens,” she said with a laugh.

Following the end of the closing ceremony’s speaking portion, executives, employees and others gathered at the railing of the Mirage’s beloved volcano to watch one of its last performances.

Wynn told Allen that she was grateful to be ceremonially passing the baton on to Hard Rock because she knows he will take a “wonderfully meaningful place” and develop its “extraordinary legacy.”

She wished Hard Rock luck in its endeavors.

“This is what we do in Las Vegas,” Wynn said. “We reinvest, we refresh and we keep Las Vegas as one of the most exciting cities in the entire world for that. We don’t let our buildings get too old.”

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