Assembly Required: No effort spared for Bellagio Conservatory’s holiday display

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2002 | 8:14 a.m.

While strolling into the Bellagio Conservatory, a tourist caught a glimpse of Audra Danzak's name tag.

Hands in his pockets, he sauntered up to her and asked, "Are you the person that made this look so nice? Good. You did a good job. Two thumbs up."

Understated yet sincere, his remarks were backed by an orchestra of gasps from small crowds soaking up the extravagant holiday display.

As director of horticulture, Danzak has whipped up what might be the most impressive Christmas show yet at the Bellagio.

Giant gold ornaments, some reaching 18 feet, hang above ivy-lined reflecting pools in the cathedrallike space off the $1.6-billion dollar hotel's lobby.

Gardens stocked with ferns, ivies and poinsettias feature silvertip Christmas trees and 5- to 10-foot jeweled ornaments complete with hooks.

A 32-foot-tall Christmas tree decked with 3,000 gold and white lights, oversized ornaments, ribbons and gold leaves steals the show.

"Our goal for this season was just to do something with pizzazz, to make them say, 'Wow,'" Danzak said, standing near a floral centerpiece, stuffed with Stargazer Lillies, fresh berries, lisianthus, roses, pionies, tulips.

"It's always been spectacular. But we've always wanted to take it a little over the edge. We have a lot of repeat visitors. We wanted to do something a little more special."

So on Dec. 1, cranes cleared away more than a dozen magnolia trees and a staff of 50 went to work in a six-day frenzy to piece together the arrangement that will be on display through Jan. 4.

"We used every minute of that to make it happen," Danzak said.

The hustle to pull together such a display, however, began in October when Danzak and her colleagues decided to do something beyond the conservatory's usual flair.

As director of horticulture since November (replacing Jim Gibbons, who is now working for Steve Wynn's new project, Le Reve), Danzak said the decision to change started with the ornaments.

Rather than dust off last year's collection, it was time to buy a new assortment.

And though 8,000 poinsettias had been ordered months ago, there was the matter of the 25-foot-tall magnolia trees. After 3 1/2 years they had outgrown their planters and needed to be cleared.

Finally, Danzak plucked David Murbach's card from her desk.

Murbach, a horticulturist and garden's manager at Rockefeller Center, had offered a slide presentation at the Bellagio library in July.

Knowing she may need him someday, Danzak kept his card, then called him this fall.

Murbach put Danzak in touch with Design Solutions, a Dallas-based company that designs corporate holiday displays for clients, such as Rockefeller Center Management Corporation and Boston Properties' Prudential Center in Boston.

"I called and said, 'We're looking for something different. We're looking for something, "Wow." ' (They were) out here immediately," Danzak said.

For the trees, she turned to the family owned Carlton Christmas Trees in Burney, Calif.

The Northern California company specializes in providing 30- to 100-foot Christmas trees for events throughout the country, including Union Square in San Francisco, Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif., (which is stands 85 feet high and is decorated), and formerly to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

The conservatory trees were taken from a Mount Shasta forest 6,000 to 7,000 feet in elevation.

Owner John Carlton wouldn't say how much such trees sell for, but he did say that he had more than $1 million invested just in the equipment required to access and deliver the trees. This includes machines used to build roads to reach the trees.

The largest trees, Carlton said, weigh up to 25,000 pounds.

"It is interesting what it takes to make it all happen," Danzak said. "Everything was just so much work, but it really all paid off."

Not willing to reveal the price spent for the display, Danzak explained, "It was a larger budget than it has been in the past.

"I guess I'm just a perfectionist," Danzak said. "If it's not what it should look like, we shouldn't do it. We're Bellagio. People want to see something different."

Danzak's background includes floral design. Before she moved to Las Vegas, where she worked as a gardner at The Mirage, Danzak owned a flower shop in Michigan.

"I always knew design would come back to me," she said. "I look at this as one big floral arrangement. We need height. We need color."

Pointing to a jeweled ornament suspended over a reflecting pool, Danzak added, "That takes your breath away."

Design Solutions also constructed garlands covered with gold and white lights, red, silver and gold Christmas balls hanging above the conservatory's entrances (and the mirrored bow sculptures attached to them) and the lighted Christmas trees in the lobby.

It also created a 22-foot-high tree sculpture near Bellagio's retail shops. Made from 4-foot gold ornaments stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree, the sculpture has a girth of 18 feet.

More elaborate Bellagio shows can be expected in the future, Danzak said.

"We have to," she said, adding that someday there might be more competition from Strip resorts.

Regarding Chinese New Year, which will replace the Christmas display in January, Danzak said, "It's going to be unbelievable."

But can it top Christmas? Quietly roaming the nooks of the conservatory display were Peg Skurnik from Colorado and Hella Tannenbaum from New Jersey.

Skurnik said the Bellagio Conservatory was something she couldn't miss this Christmas.

Tannenbaum added, "It's a little oasis of peace and quiet where you can enjoy the essence of the season."