Bellagio (Hotel and Casino)
Encyclopedia : B : BE : BEL : Bellagio (Hotel and Casino)
Bellagio is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned by MGM MIRAGE.
Inspired by the Lake Como resort of Bellagio in Italy, Bellagio is famed for its elegance. One of its most notable features is an 8 ac (32,000 m²) artificial lake between the building and the Strip. The fountain shows on the lake are a major free attraction.
Inside Bellagio, Dale Chihuly's Fiori di Como, composed of over 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, covers 2,000 square feet (610 m²) of the lobby ceiling. The hotel also contains the Conservatory & Botanical Gardens.
Bellagio was conceived by Steve Wynn and built by his company, Mirage Resorts, Inc. following the purchase and demolition of the legendary Dunes hotel and casino in 1993. Bellagio was designed by Marnell Corrao Associates and Jon Jerde.
Bellagio is home to Cirque du Soleil's production of "O", the second permanent production show for the troupe.
History
- When it opened on October 15, 1998, it was the most expensive hotel ever built, having cost over $1.5 billion.
- In 2000 it became a MGM Mirage property when Mirage Resorts merged with MGM Grand Inc. to create MGM MIRAGE.
Film History
- Bellagio was featured prominently in the film Ocean's Eleven (2001). The vault for the three Terry Benedict (played by Andy Garcia)-owned casinos that were robbed (MGM Grand, Mirage, and Bellagio) was located beneath the Bellagio.
- The sex tape that propelled hotel heiress Paris Hilton to notoriety was shot in one of the hotel rooms in Bellagio.
Fountain details
[Wet Design], a company specializing in creating intricate water shows, designed an array of underwater pipes with over 1,000 nozzles that makes it possible to stage fountain displays coordinated with over 4,000 lights and music. The Fountains of Bellagio, as the attraction is called, was made using three types of nozzles: "oarsman", which can swing back and forth to create dancing water; "shooters", which can shoot water upwards; and "super shooters", which can send a water blast as high as 250 ft (76 m) in the air. After the success that Wet Design had with the Fountains, Steve Wynn asked them to improve and modify the volcano attraction at sister casino The Mirage.
Poker Room
Many professional poker players prefer to play at the Bellagio poker room and call it their home base, due in part to the high table limits. Poker professionals refer to the high-limit table as The Big Game.
Bellagio has also partnered with the World Poker Tour to host several of their prestigious tournaments.
External links
- [Bellagio website]
- [Bellagio Hotel Virtual Tour] - 360 degree virtual tour
- [Las Vegas Travelog] - photo collection
- [Satellite view of the site]
- [Bellagio Hotel Info]
- [Marnell Corrao Associates technical project overview]
- [Bellagio Casino Review]
| Las Vegas Strip | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| ||||||
| MGM MIRAGE | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual Revenue: .48 billion United States dollar>USD Employees: 54,500 Stock Symbol: NYSE: [MGM] Website: [www.mgm-mirage.com] |
| ||||||||||||
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.