EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes new entries every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on Feb. 26, 2024.
The internet has made modern folk heroes of real-estate holdouts who stand up for what s right in the face of corporate might. One of the most famous is , the little old lady who refused to sell her family s 108-year-old farmhouse to developers, forcing them to construct their commercial building around it. (If that story sounds familiar but you don t know why, it inspired the 2009 Pixar movie Up.)
Las Vegas has a David-and-Goliath story just like that.
The Villa De Flores is the very last low-rent apartment complex left on the Las Vegas Strip. (Image: vintagelasvegas.com)“During the development of The Mirage in the late 1980s, the Villa de Flores owner refused to sell the property to developer Steve Wynn, according to historiclasvegasproject.com.
Only, like hundreds of other stories told about Las Vegas, this one isn t exactly true.
Landlord LockedThe 6/10ths-of-a-parcel lot at 3601 Vegas Plaza Drive, first purchased by Blake Ruth in 1964, was sold to Mike Flores and his parents for around $500K in 1974, according to Clark County records. The new owners built the 36 dwellings on the lot that still stand today.
The Villa De Flores is a cheaply made, two-story stucco box of 480-square-foot studios and 900-square-foot one-bedrooms. Hundreds of identical apartment buildings still stand across the Southwest, where their continued presence is usually a sign of economic stress.That s no longer the case with the neighborhood surrounding the Villa Del Flores.
The secret apartment complex behind The Mirage and Treasure Island located fewer than 50 yards from TI s employee entrance is something people don t usually stumble across unless they get lost exiting one of the resort s parking lots. (Image: Google Earth)In October 1986, casino mogul Steve Wynn purchased the Castaways casino for $50 million and started buying up the land surrounding it.
A year later, he began building The Mirage, whose $630 million price tag made it the most expensive resort ever. Wynn hadn t purchased all the surrounding land, however. And by the time he sought to build his $430 million Treasure Island in The Mirage s former parking lot in 1991, it was clear that the Villa De Flores stood smack in the way of his vision.
But here s the thing: Flores always wanted to sell his property to Wynn.
I feel like [General George] Custer, I ve been here so long, he told KTNV-TV/Las Vegas in 1993. I just wanted to retire and fade into the sunset. I m still here. So please, Steve Wynn, buy the place Please, I m desperate.
And the reason he was so desperate by then was because of his own greed. While the myth would have you believe that Flores, like Edith Macefield of Seattle, won his battle, the truth is that he decided to play hardball with someone very out of his league, and lost.
Very hard.
The Villa de Flores offers studio and one-bedroom apartments starting at $1,050 per month. (Image: KSNV-TV/Las Vegas)Seeing the property as his lottery ticket, Flores demanded $6 million from Wynn, which was unreasonably high. At the time, the total assessed value of the land and buildings was only $291,870, according to county records.
Wynn refused to be extorted but countered with a still-generous $2 million. And if you’re wondering why the two men couldn t just meet in the middle at $4 million, it’s because they were both very stubborn.
In fact, after Flores rejected Wynn s offer, the casino mogul focused his energy on ways to retaliate against Flores at least, according to Flores.
Wynn may or may not have encouraged Clark County to schedule roadwork in a manner that cut off all traffic in and out of Villa De Flores, as Flores claimed. But he very purposefully situated something across the street from the apartment building that made tempers, among other things, explode.
Three huge tanks were buried only a few hundred feet from the Villa De Flores. They stored all the propane necessary for “Battle of Buccaneer Bay,” Treasure Island’s fiery free pirate show on the Strip.
In 1999, one of the tanks went up in flames. Miraculously, none of the apartment residents was injured in the blast or ensuing fire. It was ruled accidental, though Flores called it an accident waiting to happen.
Steve Wynn is to the good-neighbor policy what Jeffrey Dahmer is to dining etiquette, Flores said around that time, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Spite Hotel
Las Vegas fire crews battle a 1999 fire across from the Villa De Flores apartments in 1999. (Image: KSNV-TV/Vegas)In 1997, Flores fired the next salvo in what had become a real-life pirate battle. He decided to auction off the land beneath his property to the highest bidder.
Flores figured that the threat of situating an even wealthier, more avowed Wynn enemy between his own two mega-resorts would finally force Wynn to come close to or meet his $6 million demand.
But Flores plan backfired. Only three entities registered for the auction:
A shopping center developer named Martin Cable, who started the bidding at $1 million and never went higher; who, six years earlier, had purchased 20% of the Villa De Flores for $1 million; andA representative of The Mirage, who didn t place a single bid.Flores ended up outbidding Engelstad for his own building at $3.5 million, becoming its sole owner.
