The 48-hour marathon opening weekend of the new Playboy Club, Nove Italian restaurant and Moon nightclub at the Palms resort-casino's Fantasy Tower was the ultimate in glamour, glitz and gorgeous girls. Already dubbed "cleavage central in the clouds," the Playboy triplex proved once again that Vegas is the ultimate city in the world for nightlife. - Playboy king Hugh Hefner wiped away the tears "It's magic, its wonderful. The bunnies are back. The legend is re-born. I've had a lot of adventures in my life, but this truly is the cherry on top of the cake! This is as good as it gets."
- Paris Hilton, wearing Playboy bunny ears took just 10-minutes for a $100,000 shopping spree at the new Playboy Club, which included a Bunny belly ring, 3 Bunny necklaces and two of the largest bling-bling diamond-studded watches!
- Christy Hefner who runs the Playboy empire told me: "It is a dream come true. The feeling is euphoric as we recreate the classic cachet in the perfect town with the perfect partners for the next generation." At midnight as partners
- George Maloof and N9NE Group owners Scott DeGraff and Michael Morton declared their new 12,500 sq.ft nightclub MOON officially open, 52 stories atop the 3-story Playboy complex of the $300-million Palm's Fantasy Tower. The ultimate good-luck omen of a full moon shone down from the sky onto the dance floor revelers as the playpen's roof retracted wide open to show the stars and night sky.
... a very private cocktail reception when Hef and his daughter Christy presented George, Michael and Scott with special gifts. First up: commemorative magnums of rare red wines with Hef's first Playboy centerfold sweetheart Marilyn Monroe etched on the label. "Pull the 2 strategically placed gold ribbons and she becomes nude," he grinned. Then: montage art-pieces with 20 photos showing the history of the Playboy club and included a photo of Michael Morton when he was just 10-years-old, dancing with a Bunny. (Michael's dad, Arnie, of the famous steak-chain, was Hef's 2nd in command of the sprawling original Playboy club empire back in the early days nearly 50-years ago). Hef then led the procession including his 3 gal pals from E's TV series 'The Girls Next Door' to the rooftop deck at the Palms pool for the official lighting ceremony.
George told me: "The rabbit logo has to be the most recognizable of any in the world. This is our $1-million salute, 30ft high and just over 2 stories on the 24th and 25th floors so it can be seen from the Strip, the I-15 and up to a mile away! It's an electronic LED so we can have any color and any image we want on it. We selected video from the early days of Playboy for the inside screen to make it very special and unique. We have resurrected the brand for the 21st Century and I believe everybody will accept it and embrace it because the TV show has helped tremendously and a whole new generationhas become fascinated with the Playboy image that Christy has reborn in a new direction. Plus, we have the most gorgeous girls in the world in their new Roberto Cavalli uniforms -- complete with trademark fluffy rabbit tails and ears -- as our Playboy dealers and cocktail servers!!. And when I gave him the tour of his very own Sky Villa he stopped, took a moment and said 'this is a very special time for me.' He was in tears absolutely blown away by what he saw."
(Click here for last week's Luxe Life with the full George Maloof guided tour of the NOVE restaurant, MOON disco-den, the Playboy Club itself and the rabbit-hutch of Hef's sky villa which now becomes the most expensive hotel, suite in the world and available for just $40,000 a night!!)
Christy told me: "To recreate the classic cache of the Playboy clubs in the perfect town with the perfect partners for the next generation is a dream come true. When people see these venues they will be blown away. This is the coolest party in town. I was the person who had the sad task of closing the very last club 20-years ago and now I'm the happiest person re-opening a brand new one. It's a euphoric feeling. Today, though, we are very different from the past. It's very important to remember we are not a standalone nightclub here, but an integrated entertainment experience with dancing in MOON, drinking and dining in NOVE and entertainment and gaming in the Playboy Club -- so people will experience the brand in 3 different kinds of ways. It's the next generation of what a nightclub should be. No nightclubs were ever more successful than Playboy clubs for the number of years they were open. They had the best entertainment, the coolest guests and the greatest food all those years ago. Today though it's impossible to book, entertainment in such small clubs so that's why gaming became the important element. What we've all done here in Vegas will now be duplicated in London, Macau where the brand can come back to life in the same multi-dimensional way. This is the perfect town with the perfect partners and a family tradition continues."
Michael Morton and Scott DeGraff, the N9NE partners told me: "It is everything we wanted.We kept asking Hef if he was happy with what hesaw. He said it was even more than we had promised. He had tears in his eyes saying he was blown away and he just kept on hugging us. We wanted to deliver more than beyond his wildest imagination. We wanted his validation and he said we did it. This is the first time ever that gaming and lounging have been integrated. We wanted luxury and exclusivity without snobbery and this just smells of money."
The Playboy Club features one wall of 60 ever changing plasma screens showing Playboy covers and centerfolds through the years and Hefner's celebrity friends. Shimmering curtains of crystals and candelabra-laden chandeliers provide the intimate lighting effects. The men's room, open to the Vegas skyline, even has Playboy centerfold photo-sessions on almost every surface and wall- and one high-roller, (according to my good friend Norm Clarke of the Review-Journal who gets the credit for this tit-bit) spotted his fiancee on show there, wearing only a deep-tan but they still got married the next day!!! In MOON the dance floor glimmers with ever changing light colors through glass tiles of a Playboy bunny's ears. At NOVE guests will feast on incredible Italian cuisine including a $150 giant lobster and an $84 supersized steak!!
I was MC for the presentation of Hef's star on the Walk of Fame at the Brenden movie theaters in the Palms. Girlfriends Holly, Kendra and Bridget joined Hef and owner Johnny Brenden with George Maloof for the ceremony. Hef's star goes alongside Nicholas Cage's and a few feet above mine!!! Afterwards a line of fans four deep stretching over a quarter of a mile waited to have calendars and special issue Playboy magazines signed by Hef and his 3-pack of pulchritude.
HEF'S OWN WORDS
Then it was time for the Playboy king to reminisce and talk in a very candid interview: "Our major clubs closed in the early 1980's. We closed Las Angeles, Chicago, and New York about the same time. I think that having operated very successfully for a quarter of a century, I think it had run its course. The club scene had changed and I think that in that time frame the bunnies seemed rather old-fashioned. Now, fast-forward to 2006-07 and things that seemed passe or out of date then now have a retro cache that is remarkably appealing. The new Playboy Club here at the Palms is a combination of both retro and contemporary. You are going to get a real sense of the presence of the bunnies and that retro appeal; it is going to be very high end. When we did the first Playboy club in 1960 I was very influenced by Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. I wanted to do a variation of Rick's Cafe America. I wanted to do a bar that I could hang out in with my friends, but it became so hugely popular that very quickly we let people open licensed clubs in Miami and New Orleans and then we went on to open clubs ourselves in New York and LA, In 1963 we opened the first casino in London and it became the most successful casino in all of London. So, for the sixties and much of the seventies, the club was very popular. Now what we are trying to do is recapture some of that sizzle, but in more of an upscale way. We are the first gaming operation in Las Vegas that has a door charge, but unlike the original clubs this is not a membership operation. One of the most fascinating parts is the Hugh Hefner sky villa, a two-story suite, a variation of the Playboy pad that we used to promote in the magazine in the 60's and 70's. It is the ultimate high-roller suite in the world and our November issue has a five-page pictorial on it, complete with playmates. It is two-stories, it includes an elevator, it includes a pool that juts out on the side of the building, and is very contemporary. It reminds me very much of the first Playboy apartment pads that we used to promote in the magazine in the 50's and 60's. It even has a round bed just like he original round bed in the Chicago mansion -- rotating and vibrating. The villa also has a sauna steam and massage room so it is going to be very, very special. "We are very happy with the girls we found as dealers and servers to represent Playboy Vegas. Today's bunny is simply a variation on the theme: the bunnies from the very beginning were very much like the centerfolds for the playmates of the month, which is a girl next door wholesomeness, beautiful in face and figure, but also with personality, very outgoing, which is very important for the bunnies themselves because they will be representing the club and the brand. The marriage of Playboy, Vegas and the Palms is an obvious fit. Las Vegas itself has gone through variations over the years. Back in the 60's when the Playboy clubs were very popular we didn't go to Las Vegas because we couldn't. Our casino operations in London did not permit the possibility of going into Las Vegas, because in those days Las Vegas was by and large in the hands of the boys. Then Las Vegas went through a kindof family oriented thing, and now going back to a retro sense and referring to themselves as "Sin City," and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So, once again, itis rooted in adult entertainment. So, we more naturally fit in as the most famous adult brand in the country, in the world. We are the most natural fit and the Palms is the youngest most successful brand in Vegas and makes more money per square foot than any other casino in Vegas. I think it will to women as much as men without question. I think the most remarkable in terms of the extension of the brand, the most remarkable thing that has happened over the past dozen year, is its attraction to a female audience. Part of that is reflected in the hugely popular TV show 'The Girls Next Door' on E, and more than half of the audience is female. We did not anticipate that. We knew we would have the guys, but we weren't sure about the women. But, in reality the brand has become hugely popular with women predating the television show, so we should have known. When Sarah Jessica Parker was doing 'Sex in the City,' she was wearing the Playboy necklace around her neck. Vogue, Women's Wear Daily, and Cosmo and a number of other magazines were featuring Playboy fashions. So what has incredibly happened over the years is that a brand that was thought of as male chauvinism has now been embraced by a whole new generation of post-feminist women, as a sign of their own personal empowerment, and nothing could make me happier than that.
"I agree that Las Vegas has always been considered Los Angeles's playground, and in reality the Playboy Mansion has always been considered a playground for the well to do and the important people in LA so I think this will be the same, just a little further east. Part of the reason that the brand has become so popular again is the reality of the parties, and the celebrities, and things related to the Playboy mansion. I think this will be one of the things in the brand extension. The thing that made the brand and the magazine so popular in the1960's was the early days of the Playboy club. I expect that same kind of synergy to be happening in Vegas. That is the beginning of what we expect to be doing selectively in terms of Playboy club casinos elsewhere around the world.
"This is a very exciting and memorable weekend for all of us. I think entire generations havegrown up with some sense of mystique of the Playboy clubs and they will now get a first hand taste of it. I was born in 1926 and grew up during the Depression and the early part of WWII. I look back on the roaring 20's, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, as the party that I had missed. And to some extent WWII, I served 2 years; I expected some variation on the Jazz Age after WWII and the flappers and all of that. When the post war after the 1950's turned out to be socially and sexually conservative, I think that is part of why I created Playboy. It was a response to that repression and the Puritanism of my own childhood and that is why I did my pages through the magazine in order to change the direction and become some spark and some part of the sexual revolution. Come and party with us."
1. We went to the original Chicago Club several times, to Kansas City, and others when we were in the neighborhood.
We've not been to Vegas lately, but now will plan on getting there soon!
I did not know that Playboy is rising again.
Great!
Bob Burns at 10:15PM on Dec 12th 2006