It's no secret that the character of Ace Rothstein, played by Robert De Niro in Casino, was more-than-loosely based on real-life sports bettor, casino executive, and Mob associate, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, who not-so-secretly ran the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina casinos in Las Vegas before finally being blacklisted by Nevada's gaming authorities and narrowly escaping death in a car bomb. Following the failed hit, Rosenthal moved to Florida, where he died in 2008 at the age of 79.
During the height of his Las Vegas career, Lefty resided with his wife Geri, portrayed as you mention by Sharon Stone, and their children, at 972 Vegas Valley Drive. A palatial mid-century modern residence, it's located on the grounds of the Las Vegas Country Club in the city's first guard-gated community and features views of the fairway on which federal agents allegedly once landed a plane. The failed assassination attempt took place just a few blocks away in the parking lot of his favorite restaurant, the (now gone) Tony Roma's located at 620 E. Sahara Ave.
In addition to the great view, when Lefty's two-story former residence last came up for sale back in 2011, some of the more unusual particulars of the home included bulletproof doors and picture windows, a hidden gun compartment, evidence of a former safe in a closet floorboard, state-of-the-art (for the time) surveillance equipment, and a suspected bullet hole. But, following a fire in the late '70s, Rosenthal had also hired celebrated interior designer Steven Chase to completely redesign the home, so in addition there are many more conventional period touches, including the intercom system (still there, but no longer operational), fabric-lined closets (to protect Geri's furs), mirrored ceilings, marble bathrooms, and "casino-style" lighting. As one report that we read put it, it's 3,266 square feet of "wiseguy chic."
It was construction workers from the Stardust who carried out the rebuild, so there are also other casino-esque features, like the steel floating staircase and industrial-strength stone work and framing. Previous owners commented that when a phone engineer saw the electrical room, he observed, "You guys could tap the whole neighborhood with this." (A former phone box by the swimming pool allowed the justifiably paranoid oddsmaker to switch lines multiple times if he suspected a wire tap.) One of the few amenities the property does not have in common with its neighbors is a second-floor balcony, which was considered too much of a security risk, while the shag-pile is one of the few original features that has not survived the passage of time.
When Frank and Geri Rosenthal purchased the property in the early '70s, they paid less than $16,000 for it. The last time it was on the market, back in 2011, it had an asking price of $649,000 and sold for $615,000.
