Wynn Las Vegas opened on 28 April 2005 on the site of the Desert Inn, which Steve Wynn bought and closed in 2000. At $2.7 billion it was then the most expensive resort ever built, and its curved 45-storey tower of bronze glass was the tallest building in Nevada. It broke the Strip's habit of a free show on the pavement: a man-made mountain hides the lake and gardens from the Boulevard, so the spectacle starts inside. Encore, a separate tower, followed next door in 2008.
There are 2,716 rooms and suites, redesigned in 2022 in soft peach and ivory with touches of gold. Even the entry Wynn Resort King is about 640 sq ft (59 m²), with floor-to-ceiling windows on the Strip or the valley and a marble bathroom with a deep tub and separate shower. Panoramic View rooms are the same room from the 28th floor up. The Wynn Tower Suites are a hotel within the hotel, with their own entrance, lifts and pool, running from the 640 sq ft Tower Suite King through the 1,817 sq ft (169 m²) Salon, with a massage room, to golf-side Fairway Villas of up to 3,224 sq ft (300 m²) with a butler.
This is the polished, full-service version of Las Vegas. Forbes rates three parts of it Five-Star in 2026: the Wynn Tower Suites, for the 20th year running; The Spa at Wynn, the first spa in the city to earn it; and Wing Lei, a gold and jade Chinese dining room looking onto a garden of century-old pomegranate trees. The three-acre Lake of Dreams, ringed by the mountain and a 45-foot waterfall, stages a show of light, puppetry and music every half hour from dusk until 11.30pm, seen from the patio at SW Steakhouse, over a drink at Bar Parasol or free from the North Show Terrace. Behind the casino lies Wynn Golf Club, the only full course on the grounds of a Strip resort: 18 holes on the site of the old Desert Inn course, reworked by Tom Fazio and his son Logan before it reopened in 2019.
The trade is price and distance. The Five-Star rating belongs to the Tower Suites, while the main hotel is Forbes Four-Star, and a Tower Suite King cost about $250 a night more than a Resort King for Tuesday 18 May 2027, when the entry room started around $680 before tax and the $55 nightly resort fee. From the north end of the Strip the Bellagio fountains are about a 25-minute walk, and smoking is allowed on the casino floor. Book it for a celebration, a golf trip or a weekend of spa mornings and long dinners, in the Tower Suites.
