Unlike the majority of visionaries that were lured to Las Vegas with ideas of casino/hotels, New York broker, Edwin Lowe, had a different vision.  He wanted to build a hotel featuring an understated country club atmosphere in elegant surroundings.  This all sounded great but he was about 40 years ahead in his thinking.

Not knowing that he was ahead of his time, Lowe built an English Tudor-style hotel and called it the TallyHo!  While King Henry the VIII likely would have felt right at home, it was 1962 and the Las Vegas Strip was anything but to the manor born.

Lowe believed that there was a sizeable number of tourists who liked to vacation in Las Vegas, not to gamble, but because of the weather and outdoor activities available around Southern Nevada.  (Like I said, he was ahead of his time).  Lowe had earned his money as a toy-maker in New York.  He was friendly with the Canadian couple who had invented a game called "Yacht Game".  Lowe saw the potential behind the game and bought the rights.  He repackaged the game and renamed it, Yahtzee.

Because of this belief, Lowe envisioned a hotel without the one thing every other hotel on the Las Vegas Strip had - a casino!

Construction began in the winter of 1962 with an opening date of February, 1963.  The TallyHo, according to our good friend Alan Hess, had leaded windows, gables and half-timbering.  With a curled hunting horn as its symbol, the hotel opened on schedule. Unfortunately, it failed within the year.  The owners, now including local attorney and one-time lawyer for Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Louis Weiner, sold the floundering property to a group of businessmen from Kokomo, Indiana who headed a realty firm.  One of their popular properties was called King's Crown and they thought one in Las Vegas might be their salvation.

The new owners opened the "King's Crown Tallyho" on New Years Eve, 1964.  Like the previous owners, they set out to prove that a casino was not necessary to the success of a hotel in Las Vegas.  The property contained 450 rooms, including 32 villas, a par-54 nine-hole golf course, four swimming pools and six specialty restaurants including the Polo Lounge and Sommelier Room.

Despite the best of ideas, the hotel failed within six months.  A group of Las Vegas businessmen headed by Edward Nealis sought to buy the property but they were denied a gaming license by the Nevada Gaming Commission and the sale was cancelled.  The other bid for the property came with a $400,000 check to be used as a down payment.  The owners were ecstatic until it was discovered the check was drawn on a non-existant British bank.

The little hotel was put back up on the auction block and remained closed. 

But on the horizon was a white knight, schooled in how to run a successful hotel and casino in Las Vegas.  Milton Prell, who had been one of the original owners of the Sahara Hotel and had steered that hotel to some of its biggest moments had his eye on the property.

Brighter days were ahead for the Tallyho but not before it underwent a complete make-over.

UP NEXT:

THE TALLYHO BECOMES THE ALADDIN

THE STORY OF THE NEON SIGN