Your timing is fortuitous, although Mr. Clarke was off by a day or two on the opening. Operations Manager Billy Pierro tells us that Sept. 17 will be the grand opening and that a soft opening is still to be determined, the attraction having missed its intended midsummer opening date by a couple of months.
Also, it is no longer Sunset Spring Ranch but has reverted to its old Casa de Shenandoah moniker. As Las Vegas Sun columnist John Katsilometes explained to his readers, "Only two people are authorized to use the name and brand of Casa de Shenandoah for such a public purpose: Wayne Newton and his wife, Kathleen." The couple and their Arabian horses returned to the property late last year, and set back into motion plans to convert the estate into a museum. Until then, here’s a five-minute video tour that gives you some idea of what you can expect to see.
Pierro says the official tour will start at a visitor center on the northwest corner of Sunset Road and Pecos Road. There, sightseers will hop on a shuttle to the mansion, one block south. They can expect to see a museum filled with Newton memorabilia, "a little exhibition" by Newton’s horses, his car collection and private Fokker F-28 jet, and exotic animals that include African penguins, a monkey, cranes, wallabies and free-roaming peacocks. Ticket prices for the tour are still undetermined and the official Casa de Shenandoah website is spectacularly unhelpful, unless you want to apply for a job.
The opening of Casa de Shenandoah falls almost exactly five years to the day that news broke that Newton wanted to create a "Graceland West" on the property (and also almost three years exactly after the estate was put up for sale). In order to make the museum happen, Newton sold his estate for $19.5 million to CSD Management, a Texas company run by Steve Kennedy, who claimed to have a "special bond" with Mr. Las Vegas: "we almost finish each other’s sentences."
Newton and Kennedy, however, would eventually end up at each other’s throats as the plans encountered difficulties. A February 2011 opening was announced but before that the project would collapse into insolvency and the relationship into bitter acrimony. Newsday reported that "The two sides traded allegations of fraud, mismanagement, animal abuse, and sexual harassment even before the case reached bankruptcy court." Kennedy was even accused of making death threats against Newton and several others.
During its Sunset Springs Ranch period, then-owners Dorothy and Lacy Harber – CSD investors who had purchased "Graceland West" out of bankruptcy -- hosted charity events and sought permission to convert part of the property into a wedding chapel, an initiative that was stymied by neighborhood opposition. The Harbers invested $15 million in Sunset Springs Ranch, which included "new stair railing, wallpaper, flooring, bathrooms, hardware, and landscaping," according to Vegas Inc. They also enlarged the property by 10 acres. Efforts to flip it for $70 million, however, proved futile. (The steep markup may have been rationalized by the $50 million CSD claimed to have invested in renovations.)
Newton, meanwhile, was living in exile two miles away in a mansion purchased for $3 million from Crazy Girls producer Norbert Aleman. Its amenities included "a wine cellar, a movie theater and a front door flanked by lion statues," Vegas Inc. reported, but it still marked a considerable downgrade from what the Newtons are accustomed to.
Although the circumstances of Wayne’s return to the property remain unclear (Newton’s sister-in-law and spokeswoman, Tricia McCrone, was out of the country and unavailable for comment), the Harbers’ difficulty of finding buyers at a $70 million price tag seems to have played a role, as did the fact that Casa de Shenandoah lies directly under a busy McCarran International Airport flight path. By late September of last year, the price had fallen to $30 million and it looked as though a local developer would buy the property, level the mansion, and erect 40 private homes.
Somehow, the Harbers and Newtons arrived at a settlement that has seen a return of Newton to Casa de Shenandoah and the long-delayed fulfillment of its conversion into a tourist attraction. Now it only remains to be seen if visitors will make the long detour off the Las Vegas Strip to see "Graceland West."
