It's true. The 15-story mountain at Wynn Las Vegas is a sort of a stealth attraction.
From the outside of the property, you see a small hill covered in trees. That in itself, however, is noteworthy: over 1,200 trees, pine, agustum, purple-leaf plum, and pistachio among them, planted in islands of soil, rich and well-drained despite being surrounded by a concrete and steel mountain. The trees, some 65 feet tall and 60 years old (transplanted from the old Desert Inn golf course), are reportedly thriving.
From the street, therefore, you get just a hint of what there is to see, but Mount Wynn isn't immediately obvious from inside, either. You catch glimpses of it here and there, but to get the full effect of the alpine extravaganza, you need to eat out on the terraces at the SW steakhouse or Daniel Boulud Brasserie, have a $12-plus drink at one of the two bars, or squeeze into a space on the tiny free-viewing platform. (These are all to be found down the spiral escalator at the Parasol Bar.)
In addition, the mountain is "faceted," meaning that it consists of four distinct environments that provide the backdrop for the row of restaurants and bars, each with its own discrete view. It hosts eight waterfalls, encloses the three-acre Lake of Dreams, and supports a 70-foot wall that serves as the projection screen for the free light-and-sound show that plays every half-hour starting at 9 p.m.
Five- to ten-thousand gallons of water a minute pour over the top of the wall-screen. Where does that water come from? That leads us inside the mountain, which is essentially an engineering complex housing the gravity-fed system for the waterfalls, the lighting system for the lake, freight elevators, workshops, huge robotic arms that move the figures on the lake, and tunnels traversed by maintenance workers. The walls and roof of the man-made mountain are the structural equivalent of a 90-story skyscraper, and that's without the hundreds of trees that they support, some weighing up to 200 tons apiece.
The lake incorporates more than 4,000 individually controlled and submersed LEDs. The system, known as C-Splash 2, is an "intelligent solid-state lighting system that provides color and lighting effects for use in fresh and saltwater locations up to 15 feet deep"; the designer, Color Kinetics, claims it's the "largest intelligent solid-state lighting installation of its kind."
Perhaps the most amazing part of the Mount Wynn saga is also symbolic of the sort of inside-out arrangement of the thing. Steve Wynn, of course, perfected the free street-side spectacle with the Mirage volcano, the Treasure Island pirate show, and the Bellagio dancing waters. He designed the Wynn's light show, initially at least, along those tried-and-true lines: The special-effects lake was intended to extend from the hotel-casino entrance to the Strip sidewalk, same as the other three shows.
But six months after the start of hotel construction, Wynn changed his mind, deciding to shield the lake from the street with the mammoth $120 million mountain. In this way, the show would no longer be "free"; showgoers would have to enter the Wynn to see it. Also, nothing that happened outside the property, either temporary (sirens or fireworks) or permanent (the Trump Tower across the Strip), could ever disturb the serene experience he was trying to create.
Which was all well and good in theory. However, not only did the whole property need be redesigned, but the contractor had to figure out how to squeeze a massive mountain between the rising frame of a 49-story hotel tower, the excavation of a three-acre lake, and the busy Las Vegas Strip. The space carved out was so confined, in fact, that the mountain had to be "built on top of itself," using special cranes that could raise hundreds of tons practically vertically.
In addition, the mountain was so heavy that the foundation had to be specially engineered so it wouldn't sink, taking down a good portion of the Strip with it.
