Sunset-colored palaces. Three golf courses. Boutiques selling hand- painted silk gowns. A Ritz-Carlton. And a lake! A 2-mile-long desert lake, with marinas, an ice rink and a floating concert stage.
Few plans embodied the hubris of Nevada's go-go years like Lake Las Vegas, the wannabe Tuscan village launched two decades ago 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. Over the years, Michael Jackson dodged paparazzi at the Ritz- Carlton. Elizabeth Taylor jetted in for her 75th birthday. Celine Dion bought a million- dollar home.
Conceived as a competitor to upscale getaway Palm Desert, Lake Las Vegas, on some days, is now more a lavish ghost town. The 3,600-acre development, like so many in Clark County, suffered one malady after another.
The lake, at one point, even sprang a leak.
“I wanted to see how bad it was," said Vince Gassetto, a contractor strolling the hushed shopping district one recent afternoon.
What's sometimes bemoaned as “Lake Lost Vegas" is a microcosm of the tattered Nevada economy -- victim of a flailing housing market, listless tourism and dwindling consumer spending. Like the beleaguered Strip, it relied too heavily on high-end clientele.
The development's one gambling hall, Casino Monte Lago, will close Sunday -- a rare event in southern Nevada, where casinos almost always survive. A four-star hotel, the nearly 350-room Ritz-Carlton, will shut down in May, a first for the hotel chain.
Homeowners and some analysts portray these as the last setbacks for a place whose beauty and serenity, they say, will draw investors once the economy rebounds.
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