The Sands Hotel
was an historic Las Vegas Strip hotel/casino that operated from December 15, 1952 to June 30, 1996. Designed by architect Wayne McAllister, the Sands was the seventh resort that opened on the Strip.
During its heyday, the Sands was the center of entertainment and "cool" on the Strip, and hosted many famous entertainers of the day. Regulars were able to mingle with the stars in the lounge after their late-night shows. In its time, the Sands was located next door to the Desert Inn. The two adjacent properties were once owned by reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes in the mid-1960s. Today, the The Venetian stands where the Sands once stood. [1]
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SANDS CASINO TICKETS
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History
The hotel first began as just a casino with a few hundred rooms. The hotel was designed by architect
Wayne McAllister. It was founded by Jakie Freedman of
Houston, Texas, grandfather of Houston socialite
Carolyn Farb. In the late 1950s,
Senator John F. Kennedy was occasionally a guest of Frank Sinatra at the Sands.
Its most famous claim to fame was a 3-week period in 1960 when, during the filming of the movie
Ocean's Eleven
, they organized an event in the
Copa Room called the “Summit at the Sands”, where for the first time
Frank Sinatra,
Dean Martin,
Sammy Davis, Jr.,
Joey Bishop, and
Peter Lawford performed on stage together. They would forever be known after that as the
Rat Pack. Sinatra would also own a stake in the Sands for a time.
In the 1950s, (limited)
integration came to heavily
segregated Las Vegas when the Sands allowed
Nat King Cole to stay at the hotel and gamble in the casino (up until this point,
African-Americans were
strongly
encouraged to
not
enter any of the Vegas casinos; most of the hotels employed barely more than a handful black employees, even as busboys and dishwashers). In the 60s, Sammy Davis, Jr. convinced the Sands to hire more African-Americans, and to allow them into the casino.
When Howard Hughes purchased the hotel in the mid-1960s, a 500-room tower was added and the hotel became a Vegas landmark.
Kirk Kerkorian (
MGM) bought the hotel in 1988, and seven months later in 1989 it was purchased by the owners of The Interface Group - Sheldon Adelson, Richard Katzeff, Ted Cutler, Irwin Chafetz, and Jordan Shapiro. The circular tower was added in 1967 by architect
Martin Stern, Jr.
In its final years, the Sands became a shadow of its former self—a throwback to the old days, and it ultimately could not compete with the newer and more exciting megaresorts that were being built on the Strip. The decision was eventually made by its final owner,
Sheldon Adelson, to shut it down and to build a brand new resort. On
November 26,
1996, it was imploded
[2] and demolished much to the dismay of longtime employees and sentimentalists. The Las Vegas scenes of
Con Air
were filmed at the Sands prior to its demolition.
With the Sands gone, its casino chips are now valuable collector's items due to the casino's legendary musical history, with the average $1.00 chip fetching around $30.00. Some rarer chips reach hundreds of dollars, and sometimes over $1,000.00.
Film history
The 1960 version of
Ocean's Eleven
was filmed here. Footage of the demolition also appeared in the
closing credits of
The Cooler
. The climactic plane crash in 1997's "
Con Air" wound up with the aircraft crashing into the soon-to-be-demolished Sands' lobby.
Musical legacy
Frank Sinatra (
Sinatra at the Sands
),
Sammy Davis, Jr. (
The Sounds of '66
,
That's All!
),
Tommy Sands,
Nat King Cole and
Count Basie (a posthumous set, also recorded during the
Sinatra at the Sands
stand) were among those who recorded live albums at the Sands.
'''Legends of the Copa Room
The greatest names in the entertainment industry graced the Copa Room Stage (the showroom at the Sands, named after the famed Copacabana Club in
New York City). The likes of
Judy Garland,
Lena Horne, (she was billed at the Sands as "The Satin Doll")
Jimmy Durante,
Marlene Dietrich,
Tallulah Bankhead,
Bobby Darin,
Dean Martin and
Jerry Lewis, along with "The Copa Girls". These were only a few of the legendary entertainers to not only perform at the Sands, but in all the showrooms along the Strip, from the late 40's until the early 90's. The public could sit ringside in a showroom holding no more than five hundred, paying as little as three dollars in the 50s up to 25.50 in the early 90s for the likes of
Liza Minnelli,
Shirley Maclaine and
Diana Ross. '''
References
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