Steve Wynn purchased the property during the resort's week-long 50th birthday celebration.  The offer was officially approved on April 27, 2000 during a board meeting in Rome.

"Though we received several attractive offers for the Desert Inn, the speed and certainty of this transaction makde it the most attractive for our shareholders."  Chairman and CEO, Barry Sternlicht.

Wynn had recently sold his shares in the Mirage, Treasure Island and Bellagio, three hotels that he had built that had helped usher in the new age of the Las Vegas Strip.  When the Mirage Resorts of which he was the chairman of was acquired by Kirk Kerkorian's MGM Grand Inc, Wynn decided it was time to move on and to try his hand at another hotel.

Speculation was rampant about what Wynn would do with the D.I. property.  Much of the rumor mill concentrated on the 32 acres across from Sheldon Adelson's Venetian Hotel (formerly the Sands Hotel).  But what was often overlooked was the entire property's advantages:  water rights, prime Strip frontage property as well as on Paradise Road and Sands Avenue, easy access to both the Las Vegas Convention Center and Adelson's Sands Expo and Convention Center and the Golf Course.

Wynn had originally promised to keep the property opened but by June it was announced that the hotel would close and be imploded to make room for a new megaresort, La Reve.   He promised to help the 1,500 employees find new jobs but said that economically it made no sense to keep the hotel open.  According to Wynn, the hotel had only two profitable years in the last 35.  The rooms, despite the luxurious renovations were too small to compete with the other megaresorts that Wynn had helped pioneer.

The biggest shocker, Wynn was planning to do away with the Golf Course because the real estate was just too valuable.  The home owners, many who lived on the Golf Course for thirty years or more, were stunned.  The Desert Inn, according to Wynn, "sits between the most powerful convention and exhibition centers in the world.  The DI has to be rebuilt.  Today, the DI struggles."

On June 26th, 2000 Wynn announced that he was moving up the closing date for the Desert Inn to August 30th.  He had told the Nevada Gaming Commission he would keep the property open until Sept. 30th.  He sent out termination letters to all the employees informing them of the newer, closer date.

The homeowners on the Desert Inn Country Club Estates, including Toni Clark Finuf herself, were given a July 14th deadline to decide whether they would sell their homes and move or fight Wynn and his partner developer Irwin Molasky in court.  Molasky had made a name for himself back in the late 1950s and 1960s by building Sunrise Hospital, the Boulevard  Mall and the neighborhoods around the Mall.  Molasky back then had often been bankrolled by Moe Dalitz.

Less than six months after Toni Clark Finuf had declared that none of the owners of the Desert Inn had ever broken her heart, she signed the agreement to sell her beloved home (the one that Wilbur had built for her as a gift for all her sacrifices while the Desert Inn was initially being built and financed) to Steve Wynn and Irwin Molasky.  According to her second husband Larry Finuf, the day she signed the papers she refused to cry until she was safely in her car.

Reports indicate that Molasky paid "interior" homeowners, those whose homes were in the middle of the Estates approximately $2 million per home.  Those who lived on the outside perimeter near Sands or Paradise Road received between $900,00 to $1.2 million.  There were a few exceptions made for a handful of perimeter homeowners.

The home of one-time Sands Hotel Orchestra leader Antonio Morrelli was one of the "interior" homes.  Designed by Morrelli and built shortly after the Estates opened, the home had sat on the Country Club for over 40 years.  The Junior League of Las Vegas, a service organization, approached Steve Wynn about moving one of the homes and preserving it.  They chose the Morelli House.  The Junior League had an empty lot in Downtown  across from the original Las Vegas High School.  Steve Wynn and Irwin Molasky agreed to pay to move the house there.  It was the only home saved from the Country Club Estates. 

Long time residents were stunned.  They had endured the loss of the Dunes, the Sands, the Aladdin, the Landmark and the Hacienda but the loss of the Desert Inn seemed to hit many of them on more personal level.  Perhaps it was that the Desert Inn had been the favored place for locals to go to for dancing and dining.  Perhaps it was all the myth surrounding Wilbur Clark, Moe Dalitz and Howard Hughes.  Or maybe it was that long time residents were beginning to realize that their town was forever changing and would never again be that small, wonderful Entertainment Capital of the World where you could see Sinatra and the Rat Pack or Elvis for dinner and drinks. 

Howard Hughes had ushered in the era of Corporate America running Las Vegas and long time residents held onto the Desert Inn as all that had been good and right with Las Vegas before "the change".  Now with the Desert Inn being imploded it was if they had lost their talisman and it was breaking their heart.

On August 28th, 2000 the Desert Inn began closing her doors for good.  Nevada Gaming Control Board agents were on hand to witness the closing which began at 2:00 am.  By 6:00 am the gaming tables and slot machines were all shut down.   There were reports of a small group of patrons drinking in the bar and watching as the hotel slowly ground to a halt.  Photographers were not permited in during the final hours.

Steve and Elaine Wynn were there to wish the remaining employees good luck on their final day of work.  Twelve hours after the shut down had begun, the Desert Inn closed her doors for good.  One of the last patrons to leave was Jack Butler, a former bell captain who had helped open the hotel back in 1950.

" I was the first one in, so I wanted to be the last one out.  It's very sad. 

I hang out here all the time since my wife died.  My car only knows how to come to this place."

Jack Butler, 90 in an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal 

By June 2001, demolition permits had been okayed by Clark County.  This allowed Wynn to begin nonexplosive demolition fo the low rise buildings including the 32,000 square feet of casino space.  Wynn indicated that the Augusta Tower, the older and southern most of the two high rises would be demolished in October of 2001.   Implosion groupies began planning on various parties and strategic places to watch the public destruction from.  If all went according to previous implosion parties, the Desert Inn destruction would rival the Dunes and the Sands.

However, the 9/11 tragedy put an end (for awhile) to the idea of raucous public displays of imploding buildings. On September 19, 2001 Wynn received approval from the County Commissioners for a 514 foot high, 2,455 room Resort and Art Gallery to be built.  The use permit gave Wynn one year to begin construction.

On October 23, 2001 at 2:00 am with little to no fanfare, the Augusta Tower was imploded.  The Strip was closed for about an hour while street sweepers cleaned up the dirt and debris.   Though about 100 people had gathered near a brick wall at the Frontier, Metro Police began moving people off the street prior to the implosion.  By the time of the implosion the on-lookers had been, for the most part, cleared out.  Thus began a new, more somber era of implosions in Las Vegas in the post 9/11 era.  This low-key approach would last until the Stardust implosion in Nov. 2006 which marked a return to the old fashioned implosion party atmosphere.

Wynn promised to keep the original tower where Howard Hughes had lived in the penthouse on the 9th floor during his era altering stay from 1966 to 1970.  It had been remodeled to a more Tuscan motif when ITT-Sheraton had acquired the property but bright-eyed historians and Classic Las Vegas lovers of all ages could point out the floor.

Le Reve, which would later become known as simply Wynn, would include 5 million square feet of space including a three acre lake, a Ferrari dealership a 45 story hotel tower, a man made mountain to help preserve the quiet and illusion of being somewhere other than the Las Vegas Strip, a newly designed 18 hole golf course, a Fashion Mall that catered to the high end shopper and Gourmet Restaurants geared towards the foodie.  Steve Wynn declared that the money at Wynn would be made not on the gaming but on the dining and retail.

On November 16, 2004, with little or no fanfare, the remaining towers, including the one that had housed Howard Hughes during his stay, were imploded.  By now the name of the resort was officially called the Wynn.  Rumor has it that Donald Trump convinced Steve Wynn that no one would remember the name Le Reve (supposedly Elaine Wynn's favorite French painting) but everyone would remember a Las Vegas Casino called Wynn.

The Desert Inn was now just part of the never ending change on the Las Vegas Strip. 

The Morelli House at Eighth and Bridger 

 Special Thanks to RoadsidePictures for letting use this image

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