Themed hotel-casinos disguise world history, landmarks as attractions

Kimberley McGee

Thursday, Aug. 10, 2000 | 8:59 a.m.

Who said Las Vegas doesn't have history?

Beyond the showgirls, clanging slot machines and buffets, tourists and locals can feel as if they've trotted the globe -- and not just cruised the Strip -- as they take in statues, art and exhibits of some of the world's greatest achievements and significant events.

The Louvre, King Tut's Tomb and the Titanic are all represented within a 15-mile radius along Las Vegas Boulevard (a well-known street that may, or may not, someday be replicated for all of its historic value).

While most of the buildings along the Strip are dealt a doomed hand when they reach middle age, many of the new hotels give a nod to historical buildings and events with replicas of other tourist attractions from around the world.

So here's a historical tour, which will start at the south end of the Strip with a mummy, and work its way north to an intersection where bells chime on the hour in honor of an ancient city.

King Tut's Tomb at the Egyptian-inspired Luxor hotel-casino heads up this tour. Adventurer Howard Carter couldn't have realized in the arid desert of Egypt, where he discovered King Tutankhamen's buried treasures in 1922, that they'd be a featured exhibiting a pyramid-shaped hotel (named after a city three miles from the original tomb) in a desert halfway around the world.

The Boy King surely didn't have any idea that tourists would one day spend 15 minutes on a self-guided tour of his replicated funereal fodder in a full-scale reproduction.

For authenticity, the gold pieces and guardian statues, among myriad items in the exhibit, were produced with gold leaf, linens and pigments for color, as well as the tools of ancient Egypt, to make the replication as true to the originals as possible.

The more than 3,000-year-old original pieces are on display in Egypt but, according to Dr. Omar Mabreuck, an Egyptologist who oversaw the production of the reproduction, the Luxor holds the largest full-scale replica outside of that country.

A bit more Egyptian trivia: The facade of the hotel pays an homage to other rulers and symbols.

In typical Las Vegas fashion, where bigger is better, the Luxor has erected its own sphinx that beats the height of the original in Egypt by three stories.

A replica of King Tut and other famous pharaohs grace the exterior and wish incoming gamblers luck with stony expressions at the casino's entrance. The lobby, where most guests check in, involved painstaking research by designers to replicate the Temple of Ramses. After numerous trips to Egypt -- and the drawing board -- the marbled lobby is a near perfect copy of the original, according to the hotel spokesperson.

Tourists can feel safe as they ascend the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel-casino. The half-scaled replica is fire- and earthquake-proof, unlike the original in France. The designers of the Las Vegas tower referred to the 1889 drawings of Gustave Eiffel, architect of the Paris tower.

It wasn't easy.

Although designers wanted to duplicate the tower (only smaller), climate differences and technology conspired to force some changes. The most significant of which is that the Las Vegas tower is welded, not riveted, so the designers added thousands of tiny, cosmetic rivets every place that they appear on the Paris tower.

Just down the way from the tower sits another Paris landmark -- although it would take a bit longer if walking the actual streets of the City of Lights. The Arc de Triomphe is a two-thirds replica of the 1805 original. The names and dates of Napoleon's victories are inscribed on the stone arch, which was originally built as a monument to the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Austerlitz. Just as in France, Bastille Day in July is celebrated at the hotel with flourish beneath the Arc.

Anyone starved for culture can turn to the hotel's version of the Louvre, where they can also eat cake, as Marie Antoinette famously opined.

The Las Vegas facade of what is probably the best-known museum in the world adorns the entry to the Mon Ami Gabi cafe. Over the entrance sit the five statues of famous French historical figures, which also appear on the original building in Paris.

Inside the hotel, a street scene is replicated along the shopping corridor that is modeled after the Rue de la Paix. The facades were aged to look as they do today in different districts around Paris.

Although there's no Leonardo DiCaprio to help sell tickets, "Titanic: The Exhibition" showcases pieces of a moment in history that seems to still pull at the public's heartstrings -- as well as their wallets.

Children's toys, combs and other everyday artifacts from the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912, have surfaced at the Rio hotel-casino in a traveling exhibit. A 1,600-pound door from the D deck is a heavyweight among the numerous items recovered from 2 1/2 miles below the surface of the freezing ocean.

Stories of survivors, letters and other intimate objects give a personal side to the inanimate items that speak of a different time.

What may also become historically significant are the science, preservation techniques, tools and equipment used to extract these china dishes, hand mirrors, glasses and other pieces of the past from the depths of the ocean.

The exhibit educates the public about the technology and difficulty of raising the items and what the crews endured with photos, videos and explanations of how the displayed machinery served the expedition.

And finally on this limited tour, an ancient city has been replicated around the typical casino backdrop of craps tables and slot machines.

Venice was the first city in Europe to open a casino (although patrons had to wear masks to hide their identity while indulging in such debauchery), and so it seems appropriate that Las Vegas should erect a casino in its honor. To lure tourists from the other attractions vying for the 30 million annual visitors to Las Vegas, the year-old Venetian has replicated 500 years of history on its 45 acres of Strip property, including a winding canal and sculptures, paintings and other pieces of art around the casino and lobby area.

The Doge's Palace, which is called "the emblem of Venice," sits at the front of the property. The Venice original was built in stone in the late 14th century and served as the seat of government for the Doge, the elected chief magistrate. The Venetian version is constructed of stone and marble tiles, and towers over the guests wandering into the casino looking for the hottest machine to pay off.

Camera-toting tourists can walk over the Rialto Bridge to shop along the Grand Canal, just as in Venice. This Grand Canal, complete with singing gondoliers, smells slightly of chemicals to sustain the bluish hue of the shallow pool that substitutes for the choppy and polluted waters of the true canal.

While the original was embossed with gold, the Venetian's replica of the 15th century Ca' d'Oro (House of Gold), is made of marble. The building in Venice is considered a prized Gothic architectural triumph.

Even the sounds of Venice have been duplicated. The Clock Tower rings hourly, as does the 400-year-old original 5,000 miles away in St. Mark's Square.

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