We sought information in vain on Lake Las Vegas’ ill-tended website. The phone number we called was out of service. Lake Las Vegas’ "Events" page hasn’t been updated since April, and they’ve not put out a newsletter since 2012. (That was the last time Lake Las Vegas was in the news to any great extent, when President Obama holed up there to prepare for his first debate with Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential race. Another sort of competition, Tough Mudder, was held at Lake Las Vegas last April.)
No movie screenings are listed on the events page of MonteLago Village, whose information is considerably more up to date, running into November. The traditional skating rink on the lake, an established feature of the holiday season, was also notable for its absence last year.
In 2012, even the presence of POTUS at the Westin couldn’t generate much of a ripple effect. "All it does is affect traffic," complained a Casino MonteLago employee while a retailer told the Las Vegas Sun, "We’re doing what we always do. We’re not doing anything different." At the time, the Sun observed, "Lake Las Vegas, with a shuttered golf course and many vacant homes, is a vivid reminder for the president of Nevada’s struggles in the down economy."
Lake Las Vegas seems to like keeping out of the news and hasn’t made much since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2010. As of last March, the golf courses were still under restoration, two of the three having fallen into neglect after going into foreclosure. John Paulson’s hedge fund, Raintree Investment Corp., now owns the two closed courses and has embarked upon the Green Grass Project. Reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "With 375 acres in disrepair, Raintree immediately set about replacing or nursing back to their green state 150 acres across both courses. Also, 100 acres of neglected trees and bushes are being cleaned, and re-irrigated."
However, The Falls course will be cannibalized to provide room for more houses. Golf carts will hopefully give way to bikers and joggers on the pathways. (SouthShore Golf Club was the only one of the three never to close during the Great Recession.) The larger community is still in its infancy, with only a quarter of the space intended for housing actually built out. Construction of another 3,800 residences was recently approved. Land once destined for a casino will become a 53-house William Lyon Homes development. But living at Lake Las Vegas remains an expensive proposition: Domiciles start at $245,000 and prices quickly escalate from there.
The former Ritz Carlton is now a Hilton-flagged hotel and the Hyatt Regency (later Loews) has become a Westin. (That’s the one at which President Obama did his debate prep.) MonteLago Village, however, remains problematic, with many empty storefronts. The Village finds itself in a Catch-22 that Master Association board member Bill Milone described thusly: "The resorts have to start to fill up to get the village to go, but the resorts aren’t going to fill up if the village isn’t going."
Work has also begun on Galleria Drive, punching it through the desert and toward a hookup with the Galleria at Sunset mall, near amenities like Costco and Sunset Station. This will alleviate Lake Las Vegas’ isolation from the outside world. It’s currently accessible only by a winding, seven-mile road. Getting people in and out of Lake Las Vegas more conveniently will relieve its perceived (and real) inconvenience and should connect this resort outpost with the wider world.
