Friday, January 9, 2009

The Encore, Las Vegas' Newest Resort

Walking into the new Encore hotel in Las Vegas is a very enlightening experience. The buttressed ceiling is made of glass and lattice which allows for natural light to illuminate the casino floor below. It's a far cry from the old smoke filled, musty casinos of the past.

This new sister property to the signature Wynn hotel next door takes the boutique experience first felt in the Wynn to the next level. The registration area above is very low key and tucked into the back of the hotel. You can't see it very well in this photo but the back wall is covered with huge flowers that are completely encrusted with vibrant ruby red Swarovski crystals.



The jaw dropper is definitely the enormous red, crystal encrusted, chandeliers that hang over the gaming tables in the main casino. The lighting design at The Wynn, seen here, was magnificent and the designers have followed through with equally stunning fixtures in this new project. The task lighting has been very well designed and the property is brightly lit which provides a vivid contrast to these colorful fixtures. Amazingly there is no red glow or pink wash from these fixtures on the surrounding white molding which had to be a difficult problem to overcome.




This fixture was amazing, made of curved glass leaves . The pictures really do not do them justice. Their scale is huge but they don't overpower.




This restaurant off of the main casino was decorated with a lighted crystal sculpture of a huge dragon on the back wall. It is truly stunning in person.



It must have taken thousands of crystals not to mention man hours to put this work of art together. It is illuminated from the inside and lights up the whole back wall.




These two fixtures where my favorites. The gilded trees are complete with spun wire nests and little birds and topped with the signature red lampshades.



The tufted, upholstered, white satin, ceiling is the perfect foil to show off the lights against the deep red ceiling.




In the shopping area, there is another section of glass and lattice ceiling as well as windows on to the pool so it is filled with natural light during the day.




Giant bejeweled fixtures hang from each section of the hallway.



This golden, blown glass fixture was gorgeous, hung in it's own gold leafed, domed vestibule.




The secondary stars of the property are the fabulous draperies hung throughout the space which act as room dividers to create a very intimate feeling in the casino. The gaming tables and slot machines are separated into small groups which are housed within a separate draped section giving you the feeling that you are gambling in a VIP section or high roller suite even if you're only played the quarter slots!


Luxurious draperies are everywhere and again the scale is mind bending. The trim on these panels looked to be one layer of double brush fringe overlapping two layers of hanging tassel bullion with another layer of double brush fringe on the other side. Not to mention the layers of fabric and interlining. I can't imagine any industrial sewing machine that could get through all of those layers but it's mind blowing to think they were all sewn by hand!!!!

These vibrant tassels were two and a half feet long!



The walls are draped and the mirrors have tassels on them.

More gigantic tassels.



This was an interesting treatment. It is threaded through a circle built into the arched molding of the opening creating a built in scarf holder.


One of the focal points of the resort are the colorful mosaic butterfly's inserted throughout the marble floors of the casino. I'm not a big butterfly fan so I wasn't wowed; the light fixtures are what blew me away.

1 comment:

Renée Finberg said...

J-

Now those are tassels!

that place looks like fun !!

my fav of course, are the cream draperies with black trim ( mine is black 6 "bouillon ), exactly like my bedroom.

hugs