The Debbie Reynolds Hollywood Hotel & Casino was located in the building at 305 Convention Center Drive that most recently housed The Clarion hotel-casino, which closes at noon today. The future of the property remains hazy, but our understanding is that it has new owners and will likely be razed, or imploded, to make way for something entirely new.
While we can't tell you much about the future of the former Debbie Reynolds, we can tell you something about its history. The property was built by downtown legend Jackie Gaughan and opened in 1970 as the Royal Inn, later renamed the Royal Americana. A 1986 change of ownership saw it become the Paddlewheel, with appropriate changes to the external appearance. During the Debbie Reynolds era, the iconic paddlewheel itself was repainted as a movie reel, but it was an unconvincing disguise. Even if you didn’t know the property’s history as the Paddlewheel, you realized at a glance that it had been riverboat-themed at some point.
In 1992, when the owners of the Paddlewheel couldn’t make good on their debts, former screen star Reynolds (Singin’ in the Rain, The Unsinkable Molly Brown) snapped it up at auction for $2.2 million, then plowed another $2 million of her own money into re-theming the place. As her son Todd Fisher put it, "the theme was Old Hollywood, combined with classy Las Vegas style." To this end, Reynolds’ own collection of Tinseltown memorabilia provided one of the main attractions. The other was Reynolds herself, who performed in the casino’s 500-seat showroom.
Rather than obtain a gaming license -- an onerous, lengthy, and intrusive process -- Reynolds opted to farm out casino operations to Jackpot Enterprises, which paid rent and kept the gaming revenue. (Since casino revenue comprised the majority of a Vegas hotel’s cash flow circa 1992, this may well have been a fatal error.) Rather than focus on gambling, the Reynolds family decided to make selling timeshares their priority. As Fisher later admitted, no matter how well the units sold, "the cost of the sale was higher than the sale [itself]."
Basically, the Reynolds family not cut out to run a casino-hotel. By Fisher’s admission, the Jackpot Enterprises lease was losing him as much as $12,000 a month, part of nearly a half-million dollars in monthly red ink. He attempted to shift blame to hotel management, which he accused of "allowing costs to get out of control. They were also taking exorbitant salaries and cutting great deals for themselves."
Those managers were sacked by Fisher in 1995 and he took a more hands-on role. His attempt to obtain a gaming license was thwarted when the Nevada Gaming Control Board deemed Reynolds’ hotel to have insufficient operating capital. That lack of cash on hand also prevented "the Debbie" from promoting itself effectively. Jackpot Enterprises was cashiered as casino operator in March 1996, taking its 182 slot machines with it.
This forced the 193-room hotel to limp along without any gambling income whatsoever. As the property’s legal counsel, Lenard Schwartzer, later put it, it was "under-capitalized and over-financed, and it never really had enough money to get going."
After an attempt to sell the property for nearly $17 million to Phoenix-based condo developer ILX collapsed, Reynolds resigned as chairwoman (but continued to perform, ever the pro) and the hotel-casino entered bankruptcy in July 1997. Reynolds also had to file personal bankruptcy, having been a 26% stakeholder in the insolvent business. "It’s heartbreaking to her," a spokesman told the Los Angeles Times. The off-Strip fixer-upper was "something she’s loved and dreamed of. She’s struggled for five years to make the project go." The same might be said of her marriage (#3) to Richard Hamlett, a casualty of the sturm und drang that bedeviled the Debbie Reynolds.
The Debbie had lost $6.5 million in 1996 and was almost $14 million in debt at the time of the Chapter 11 filing. Despite being in bankruptcy, the property managed to appreciate in value. The World Wrestling Federation paid $10.6 million for it in August 1998. After grappling with the concept of a 1,000-room, WWF-themed resort for 10 months, league owner Titan Sports decided to try someplace else (but never did).
Enter Mark IV Realty, which acquired the ex-Debbie in 2001 and reopened it as the Greek Isles Hotel & Casino in August 2001. Mark IV cut a deal with Delta and United airlines to put up aircrews passing through Vegas in the Greek Isles. During the real estate boom, the property’s value continued to go through the roof. In July 2007, near the height of the market, DI Development Group paid $49 million plus debt (or $8 million an acre, which ironically enough is about the price for Strip property today) for the Greek Isles, with the intention of converting it into a twin-tower, 780-room, convention-oriented hotel. Mark IV continued to manage the hotel. By this time, the casino had reopened and was operating as a kind of glorified (104-machine) slot route under the auspices of United Coin Co.
Like so many other plans for the Royal Inn/Paddlewheel/Debbie Reynolds/Greek Isles, DI’s came to naught. On the evening of Feb. 9, it was seized by a court-appointed receiver, ownership having defaulted on a $56 million loan. The hotel and casino continued to operate, and in the spring of 2010 changed its identity yet again to The Clarion, under which it operated up until today, with the same small casino and the Wolf Theater, home to a revolving door of popular tribute acts, magicians, and the like.
The last time we wrote about the Debbie Reynolds was a few years back, and we received the following feedback at the time from a reader, which seems like an up-beat note on which to end this somewhat sad tale:
"I was fortunate to get to see Debbie perform at her casino. She put on a wonderful show, came into the lobby after the performance and posed for pictures with anyone who wanted one, and then hung around to autograph the photo when it was ready. I am the proud owner of one of those autographed photos and it's one of my great memories of Las Vegas. I'm sorry to hear she had financial woes. Seems that financial woes have plagued Debbie for much of her life. But she's such a trooper and performed a wonderful, positive, funny and entertaining show."
